Let news keep us connecting and sharing

FROM BIRTH to old age, everyone is exposed to some form of the media. I grew up with newspapers in the home and always looked forward to uncovering what was happening in the world.

Now in the digital age our attention is directed towards other sources of information, communication and entertainment. We can catch history as it happens or watch live sport 24/7.

Who owns the media? Media moguls have learned how to create a market. Consumers buy into their ideas about success, happiness and

EVERY newspaper has to learn how to create a market. The choice of media content is created by and reflected in the interests of the sellers.

If I, for example, wrote something objectionable to company policy, the newspaper would not print it. The what’s trending. Advertisers want to convert their contacts into leads.

Today a handful of corporations own the world’s information.

In 1997, James Bond was commissioned to stop Elliot Carver, the power-mad media mogul, from engineering world events to initiate World WarIII. Multimedia billionaires have the power to choose what they want to show.

Challenging opinions and opposing views can be prevented people who decide what news items are to be covered shape the news for us by selecting and editing items.

I have committed to myself (a New Year’s resolution) to write 52 from getting a hearing. Even this newspaper, The Cape Times, has its own views and its own particular bias, particularly about politics.

The pressure of persuasion works on our conscious and unconscious thought processes, giving an impression that we are free to choose while at the same time robbing us of all the means of free choice.

Whether we agree or disagree with the content, news connects and awakens our sense of sharing.

letters to the editor on matters of social and moral responsibility for 2019.

I am only submitting to the Cape Times and it’s been good to see you publishing my letters. Thank you.

The Cape Times is not Die Son, Cape Argus, Die Burger or Tatler.

In a conversation with the learned religious leader Nicodemus, Jesus said: “The Spirit of God is like the wind.

“You feel and see the wind at work, but you never, never trap it, or seal it up and possess it. You cannot own the word.” REVEREND MARK H STEPHENSON

| Mossop Hall Methodist Church, Mowbray

EDITOR: Hi Rev, care to elaborate on this: “Even this newspaper The Cape Times has its own views and its own particular bias particularly about politics”? Regards, Aneez

Who owns the media is a question that begs the question: is the journalist’s role to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted? Or should we comfort the comfortable and ignore the afflicted?

Hope this helps. MARK STEPHENSON