The Reality TV Campaign

            Peter Roff is a politic writer from the U.S. News & World Report. In his article, “The Reality TV Campaign: The media have let the American people down,” he writes about how media has changed politics. Roff’s argument is presidential debates are becoming more into reality television and its focus is to entertain instead of focusing on nations problems. Roff said that the reason television is more focus on the entertainment part of debates because viewers aren’t going to watch debates because most of them think they’re boring. The only way the media can get more views or reader is to give them what they want: drama, twist, and surprises ending. Roff is concerned because they're problems with foreign affairs, candidates haven’t mentioned anything about those issues. He is worried that U.S. may lose allies since some country doesn't trust the U.S. for past decision that the president made. Roff makes an analogy about how media wants to focus on rating and instead of good quality journalism, he said “It's the market at work, giving the people what they want – but more people watching wrestling doesn’t make it any more real and more people watching a football game doesn’t make the quality of the play any better.” Roff makes sense on the ugly reality of media. Roff was formerly a senior political writer for United Press International. He writes about public policy for a number of publications and for public policy group. Roff background in politic writing makes him credible.
              Roff intended audience is Americans citizens who watch TV or people involve in politics. Roff entire article focuses on how people are being affected because media isn't focused on the real issues. He feels bad toward the readers and viewers because he feels like he let them down because other media and himself have reported on the entertainment part of the debates and not on the main issues. Roff is concern that voters are going to choose a candidate base on what the media portraits them and not their capacity as future president. I agree that we can’t base our votes on a presidential candidate base on what we see on television it should be base on actions like they say “actions speaks louder than words.”