All the News That's Fit to Print

This chapter helped me to understand the underlying role of a journalist. The section that stuck out the most in the chapter was the techniques used in advertising. The book said that in the advertising industry, producers noticed that people will receive their products better and with more trust if they have an "expert" backing them up. So they put actors in white lab coats to pose as doctors and attest to the fact that "experts agree" that their product is better. By using this approach, they are bringing in a third party effect, which isn't apparent when watching the commercial at hand. When I see a commercial about a new allergy drug, for example, when they show a "doctor" that says "this works so well I prescribe it to my patients" or when commercials claim that a specific product works better than any others because experts say so... I never stopped to read into their claims. Who are these people that they are claiming to be "experts." This chapter taught me to read into not only what the media is saying through advertising, but also journalism, the news, and pop culture as a whole.