Studying the basis behind the media's agenda helps me better understand why there is so much press over certain things, yet hardly any over others. In honor of 9/11, I will use that as an example of how the media's agenda influences what information is put on the front page and what is left to collect the dust.
My understanding of the media's agenda is that they emphasize what they believe will have the most readers or viewers. They do this first of all in order to get the most money they can, but also because the press company has to be sure and not say anything that will steer away their regular audience. This also goes along with how those running and funding the company seem to regulate what the company reports. For instance, a very conservative newspaper wouldn't run a story about how they think gay marriage should be legal throughout the country, because not only would that story probably not get through the higher-ups, but the newspaper would lose a lot of faithful readers because they read that specific newspaper in order to get away from things like that.
An example of the agenda in media that I found deals with post-9/11 news. Recently, just about every major news publication reported something about the Florida church that planned on burning Qurans on the anniversary of 9/11 this year as a front page story, and were sure to keep updating as the day grew near. Now, something I recently discovered is that four years ago, on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, there was a monument opened in New Jersey given to America as a gift from Russia. There was even a chain mail message sent around about this unknown monument, with the first line in the email being "I have never heard of this before...Why didn't the press report this?". This is a great example of the agenda in media because it shows what the news decides to make the front page and what gets unnoticed. Why the monument didn't get much press coverage is beyond me, but a main reason could be because it would be a nice gesture to the Russians to acknowledge this, and maybe some news corporations would rather not give any praise to Russia.
The basic agenda of the media is to just put on the front page whatever will get the most people to take a look at it, even if there is other news that deserves the front page treatment just as much. The 9/11 Memorial opening definitely seems like something that would be front page material, with Bill Clinton even giving a speech at it; but I guess there was something else at the time that was thought to be more important by the news corporations and thus was given much more press.
Links:
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/tributes/teardrop.asp
http://www.911monument.com/
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-07-29/us/florida.burn.quran.day_1_american-muslims-religion-cair-spokesman-ibrahim-hooper?_s=PM:US
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-09-09/us/florida.quran.burning_1_quran-islamic-center-muslim-leader?_s=PM:US
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