Understanding the Attitude
In the essay “The Bias of Language and the Bias of Pictures” which appears in The Norton Mix, authors Neil Postman and Steve Powers evoke the attitude of suspicion. People form their attitudes primarily based on someone else’s perception versus their own. An attitude is what often guides people’s decisions. Postman and Powers discuss different levels of language and how both moving and still pictures may not be true representations of fact. Key indicators that they harbor suspicion about the media are obvious when they discuss recreations, how language operates and how words actually express meaning. During old historical movies, historical dates and events are told in a way to not only inform but to catch the viewers attention. Newscasters are similar. Instead of listing off facts, the reporter creates a story with the facts in it. That keeps the viewers from changing the station. “The job of an honest reporter is to try to find words and the appropriate tone in presenting them that will come close to evoking the event as possible” (par.3). Reporters today state facts in a way that they want the viewers to understand it. This is important to the readers because it shows how reporters use different words to describe a situation.
Words show emotion and are filled with meaning. When a reporter is trying to keep the viewer interested, she may include words that trigger the mind to define an event, person or situation. For example, “Today congress ordered an investigation of the explosive issue of weather....” (par 6.). The sentence includes the important descriptive word explosive. Communication always includes “.... a feeling, an attitude and a judgment” (par.6). This is important to the readers to understand that reporters use different words not only to explain a situation better but to catch their attention.
The famous saying, a