power of the media and television

To what extent do the best selling newspapers cover stories related to serious issues? To what is there role to do so? Does the tabloid media and low budget entertainment have too much power and influence in this country.

Although the best selling newspapers cover stories related to serious issues these are often very one sided and cause emotional reactions to them compared to other newspapers like the independent and the guardian. For example in a situation where a murder has occurred and details of the incident and possible suspect. The sun would commonly write something like: Husband violently attacks his loving wife stabbing her 6 times, he smiles and laughs as he chucks her out of the window. This encourages the emotional response of hatred for the person. Where as the independent would try to be much less biased: The husband has been taken into custody as the main suspect for the murder of his wife who was stabbed and then threw through a window. This approach allows the reader to form there own opinion of the situation and whether they believe the husband did it or not.
However without the media we would not be informed of these things at all so it is their role to keep us informed of these situations.
Low budget entertainment such as soaps often bring in huge amounts of viewers everyday, this is because it creates a fictional story based on serious issues that we commonly do not hear about and do not know the details of, for example serial killers, rapes affairs etc, things that in everyday life we don't get to see or hear about and we don't see or know the details, where as within tv series we get to see the crime first hand and we know what is happening and the details are absolute. But in everyday life without seeing or knowing the person it is alot harder for us to become attached to the situation. Due to this soaps can have a major influence on the way that people think about different situations.