Consider the following comments on media.
The medium is the message.
Marshall McLuhan
Whoever controls the media controls the mind.
Jim Morrison
We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.
John Naisbitt
A free press can be a great asset or a menace, but never a quiet one.
The story that travels fastest is rarely the one that is true.
Write a piece in response to one or more of these comments. Your essay will be assessed on the quality of your argument and the way you express it.
A way into this prompt
A defensible thesis is that the media does not merely report reality but selects and shapes which parts of it we ever see, so its greatest power is the quiet one of setting the agenda rather than the loud one of telling lies. Begin by conceding the optimistic case: a free press exposes corruption and gives citizens the information democracy requires. Then press the harder point that attention is the real currency, and outrage travels faster than nuance, so the system rewards what engages rather than what informs. A strong third move distinguishes deliberate propaganda from structural distortion, since the more pervasive bias is the one built into what gets clicks rather than what gets censored. Caution: resist the lazy conclusion that all media is therefore worthless, which conveniently excuses the reader from the harder duty of judging sources.