Review

Vantage point

The movie “Vantage point” is about the assassination of the President of the United States. The movie started off by showing President Ashton being assassinated, and the plot unfolds by showing how secret agent, Thomas Barnes, created a manhunt to find the assassin, only to find out that his partner is involved in the assassination of the President of the United States. It is a story told from different angles, because only from there, we can know the truth and find out how President Ashton was assassinated and by whom.

However, the main concern about this essay is not about the synopsis; it is about the media theories behind it.

In the movie, I can tell that there is news objectivity. News objectivity is to provide news information in the fastest and unbiased manner. As a reporter, one must learn how to report facts and interpret it and present it to the audience, especially when it comes to reporting acts of terror. The reported fact must not contain the reporter’s personal opinion, because if it does, the news is not longer fair, and can be deemed is a biased report. Baydar, Gore, Haraszti, Maurus, and Zlatev (2008), contend that terrorist acts must be reported with a sense of responsibility and accuracy. Reporters must choose their words wisely when reporting on terror acts. Words that praise terror acts or terms that has emotional or value judgments should be avoided. In this case, Angie, the reporter at the bombing scene, demonstrates news objectivity by reporting facts only. She was there at the bombing scene, so she reported what she saw, which makes her report unbiased.

Another theory involved is the agenda settings theory. The media mainly influences what we think about. McCombs (n.d.) noted the power of the media, because it has the ability "to set a nation's agenda, to focus public attention on a few key public issues", and that it "is an immense and well documented influence". The media makes us think about issues, which may... [continues]

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