(14) IELTS Writing Task 2: News Editor

News editors decide what to broadcast on television and what to print in newspaper. What factors do you think influence these decisions? Do we become used to bad news? Would it be better if more good news was reported?

Being a news editor means having control on the spread of information throughout society. This cannot be done at random; a lot of factors contribute in a news editor’s decision on what to print or broadcast.

First are actuality and reliability. As the source of the information spread in society, the company’s name is being put on stake. Delivering false or misleading news can result in distrust toward the company. However, one cannot deny that the news company also serves as living source of its employees. Therefore, comes factor number two; the selling point. Some news will be prioritized if it can catch public’s attention. History has seen so many cases and events were being over exploited while others were ignored, merely because the former sold more than the latter.

The last is the benefit they can gain from it. Often, it is not the matter of revealing the truth but more about shaping public’s opinion. Governments have been known to cooperate with publication and broadcast for this purpose. Despite the controversies, this practice continues to happen until today.

The current concern though, is the over-exploitation of bad news. People secretly love suffering, and news editor use this to boost their sale. Personally, I think too much bad news brings a lot of negativity into society. People start to lose faith in humanity and in turn, this can create even more chaos. More good news will be better for the situation in society.

Overall, news editor truly have great control on what going around in society. It is irrefutable that in modern society, media is the most important tool to control the people.