Research Paper on:
Book Review of James Fallow's Breaking the News How the Media Undermine American Democracy

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
In "Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy" author James Fallow attacks the subject of  media irresponsibility in regards to politics head on. Published shortly after Fallow took the lead at U.S. News, this book backs up its contentions with fact. Fallow depicts  a media, however, which is far removed from our concept of investigative ability and factual reporting. Indeed, the media of today has been a deleterious influence in the way  that the American public views the democratic process and their role in that process. Fallow contends that the media has hampered  our democratic participation. Because of the degradation in the media we are witnessing today Fallow calls for a "civic journalism, a journalism in which the media returns to its  initial function, a function of educating rather than misdirecting, a function of inspiring us to participate in the political rather than encouraging us not to. Above all, Fallow calls  for a return to the responsible journalistic practices which characterized the medias history. In turn, he condemns the current trend of the press separating itself from its ability to  act as a public forum for political issues. Fallow brings to our attention the fact that media irresponsibility comes in many forms.  Through it our fashions, our foods, our entertainment, our religions, our politics are all being force fed to the worlds population. Many times these messages are in the form  of actual advertisements and politics, many times they are more subtly wrapped in our movies and other mass media presentations. Regardless of the package, however, the effect is the