Travel to Africa: Separating Fact From Fiction in Today’s Media Reports
Countries across Africa have experienced unfortunate tragedies and major setbacks since late 2014, creating continuous media frenzy and a flood of sensational reports to gain viewers/readers. Topics such as Ebola, acts of terror and pirates are not only displayed in excess but these stories also unfairly lump the entire continent of Africa together, portraying the problems of few as the issues of all. However, if news can be turned into sensational stories and garner weeks of national or international coverage, why would any station or publication settle for reporting just real, everyday news? Proponents believe sensational news is unavoidable and promotes the proliferation of good stories throughout a society. But at what cost? Does the real story just get swept aside for the “better” story? By owning a television, Americans are putting themselves at risk for hearing and perpetuating erroneous and often over-dramatic reports about people or countries that have already been labelled by the media as pariahs.

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