Agenda Setting

Maxwwell McCombs' quotes are based off his agenda- setting theory that reality flows through the media which flows to the audience. I definetly believe in his theory because the news producers create the end product of information that is sinking into your brain. The editor of a newspaper could twist a story around and publish it on the front page and all of the publication's readers would believe what was written. He just created their reality for them, when in fact that might not be reality.
Probably the biggest lesson I have learned here at IC I learned during my first semester at school in my Media and Politics class: Don't believe everything you read.
Studying to be a journalist I now know to search multiple sources to get an accurate account of what the full story is, but how many news consumers don't know to do that or don't care? My whole life growing up I thought that because it was on the news it must be true. But that has turned out to be wrong many a times. Look at the whole Killian document controversy with Dan Rather back in 2004. CBS reported it and stood by their investigations and then a week later apologized to the coutry stating the documents they obtained were fake.
What McCombs is saying about editors and producers influencing our perceptions is true because they get to pick which information to publish or broadcast out to the public. By gatekeeping, priming and framing they get to create reality for news consumers.