America is given information each day in an assortment of ways. News programs and talk shows take different approaches when trying to relate to the viewers and presenting information. News programs connect to the viewers by relaying facts and information that interests them, while daytime talk shows connect by having topics that personally affect the audience's everyday lives. Recently, the popular nightly news program on NBC, Dateline, and the daytime talk show ,Dr. Phil, had shows about teenage obesity. Both shows provided information about the problem and also had a weight-loss challenge for a group of overweight teens. Dateline made their appeal by supplying facts supporting the subject, while Dr. Phil made his by personal interaction and the larger number of suggested solutions for this problem.
             Dateline's program entitled "Generation XL," discussed the battle three teenagers had in losing weight and a summer camp that these teens were enrolled in. Keith Morrison, the reporter who investigated this story, followed the teens through the entire camp weight-loss program, along with the camp reunions for the two following years. He stated that "almost nine million American children and teenagers weigh more than they should. That's three times as many as a generation ago." Morrison offered some solutions for helping teen obesity but mainly provided facts about the problem. The best news-programming will try to be fair and balanced and only report factual empirical evidence.
             Unlike Morrison, Dr. Phil targeted teen obesity by directly dealing one-on-one with people experiencing the problem in front of a live audience. In his episode, "Teen Weight Loss Challenge," Dr. Phil, along with his son Jay, interviewed five overweight teenagers about their struggle and how the program in Jay's book Ultimate Weight Solution For Teens, which was promoted on the show, helped them lose we...