A recent CNN news article by Allison Harding drew attention to a topic we discussed earlier in the semester. According to our textbook the media can serve as watchdogs which means that the news media watches “over the government, checking the accuracy of people’s statements and ‘barking’ to alert the public” (70). The article Ad's fake Morgan Freeman voice roils campaign explains how a recent republican campaign in North Carolina featured the ‘fake’ voice of Morgan Freeman.
Although Republican candidate B.J. Lawson's said that the party was tricked into using the voice by a production company the article reveled that even after suspicious had been drawn about the identity of the voice Lawson confirmed it was Freeman on Facebook. Furthermore the article stated that the production company MEI, “sharply denied misleading Lawson, and said that it told the campaign they would be using a voice double for Freeman at the outset of their discussions. MEI produced an e-mail dated October 12 - two weeks prior to the e-mail released Lawson's campaign – that it says proves it never claimed to have the real Freeman available.”
This article is a solid example of the media act as a watchdog and keeps an eye on the government, checking up on their accuracy. As watchdogs they revealed that the freeman voice was a hoax and brought forth evidence Lawson claims that he was mislead may be false.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think this is a great example of the media acting as watch dogs to politicians so that the public is not being told inaccurate information. I think it was a very bold thing for B.J Lawson's campaign to have pulled. Lawson is also saying that the party was tricked into using the voice by a production company but regardless they just admitted to using Freemans voice regardless of how they acquired it. I also think this kind of goes back to our discussion about having celebrities endorse you as a candidate. Morgan Freeman is a very popular man in Hollywood and if this wasn't caught by the watchdogs this could have really helped to boost Lawson's campaign. So even though politics can seem very negative and secretive sometimes watchdogs really do help to moderate what citizens see.
ReplyDelete