Summary Of The Tyrant By Daniel Alarcón

Daniel Alarcón, the author of “The Contestant”, expresses how the effects of the media can be truly fatal by highlighting some key factors in his article. “The Contestant” is a story about Ruth Thalia, a Peruvian woman who became the first contestant on a popular game show. Shortly after Ruth’s appearance on the game show, her body was found in a well and covered in concrete. This true story of Ruth Thalia’s death is a perfect example of the evil’s of popular media and how it can ruin reputations and lives. The media constantly manipulates celebrities and people in the public eye to obtain a good story for good ratings; celebrities have virtually no privacy and are being judged by the public at all times. However, celebrities are used to

Exploitation is to take full advantage of a person or to treat them unfairly; people in the public eye frequently face exploitation to get a good story, “That’s all that mattered. The ratings!” (Alarcón 81). Alarcón highlights how exploitation can affect a person who is not typically in the public eye. Alarcón invokes pathos to make the audience understand how truly upsetting it is when someone is exploited so much that their reputation can never come back from it. The way the media manipulated Ruth caused not only her reputation to be ruined, but it also ruined her ex boyfriends. He was constantly teased by his peers after the show aired; this teasing caused him so much pain that it pushed him to hurt Ruth, and even go as far as killing

Before Ruth was identified as “the prostitute from El Valor de la Verdad”, the media had no interest in getting out her story. Ruth had been missing for weeks before anyone cared about her. After Ruth’s disappearance was announced, the media wanted to get exclusive access to her family. The entertainment business frequently went to their house to ask for interviews and see how they could further manipulate their story to get better ratings. This is an example of how the media truly doesn’t care about the public and is only interested in a good story and ratings.The wellbeing of a person doesn’t matter unless that person is in the public eye and it's a good story. The media has the power to make a person the most greatest celebrity of all time, regardless of their true talents. In Ruth situation, she quickly became an overnight sensation due to her sharing her story on the game show. The saddest part of the story is that no one would even care about her disappearance or her death if she had not been on the show; she also may not even be dead if she wasn’t a guest on the show. When Ruth was eventually found, her death was announced by the host of “El Valor de la Verdad”. Her death almost seemed like a joke to him, it seemed as if he only made the announcement to please the public,