1984

How is this concept demonstrated in 1984? Do you think this could happen in our society today? Why or why not?

To a certain extent, all of us must deal, not with reality itself, but reality as it is perceived by others.  Public opinion is a good example.  If people perceive something is good, it becomes good.  If it is perceived as wrong, it becomes wrong.  "War is peace."  When a nation is at war, it is most in tune with its own sense of reality (i.e. patriotism).  The media states "We report; you decide."  Yet the media decides what to report and what to ignore.  Without information, we cannot deal with reality as it is, but only as the media's presentation of the reality it wants.  The rewriting of history in 1984 is a good example.  What the people know is real.  Therefore, limit the sources of information to the media.

This is an extension of the "Who controls the present controls the past; who controls the past controls the future."  If something happens that we do not personally witness (interestingly, even if we are there we might not see what happens because of our own prejudices ... just ask a few people who witnessed Obama's speech this week what they saw/heard), we are at the "mercy" of whoever reports the event to give us the details.  Since the event is past and no longer exists, we are given the details through the eyes of an "editor," someone who makes decisions about what we should know and not know, what is important and what is not, etc.  Our news media does this all the time.  To use the example in the question, we did not see the Tiananmen Square incident, so we are trusting someone else to inform us about what happened.  But what do they select?  Which incidents (protestor violence or tank violent --- were both there)?  What words do they report it in?  How much time is given to each event within the story?  What videos are we shown (tanks running into protestors --- did the protestors do anything --- how can we know)?  You get the point.  The media does not just "report" reality; in a real sense it creates it by what we see and what we don't see.  

Imagine what Orwell might have written if could have imagined the uses his humble telescreen has been put to ....

It does happen in our society today to an extent. Starting with the 1960 presidential election, television became important to how the public viewed presidential candidates. Appearance became important and a matter of who "looks" more presidential. Nixon didn't come off as "looking" presidential, especially against Kennedy, who was younger, better looking, and a lot more charismatic. Since that time, the media has played a large part in the politics of this country. A number of supporters of Hillary Clinton feel that she was not treated fairly by the media in running against Obama, and they are still bitter about this feeling. This is why Obama and Clinton must now appear to be unified, so Hillary's backers won't vote for McCain. Just yesterday, McCain decided to make the governor of Alaska, a woman, his vice-presidential candidate. He's trying to lure those Hillary voters to his side.

As far as the quote is concerned, Peter Jennings knows to what extent the media controls public opinion. The media decides what is acceptable and what isn't acceptable, therefore deciding what the reality is. By choosing what to air, what not to air, and the favorable or unfavorable spin they give to what they air, the media decides for us what is important to us and for us.

I'm glad you guys know what this means

"1984" reveals many things about this quotation. The most important thing it reveals is just how clumsy overt control of the media is, and how that isn't the foremost danger. By that I mean, look at how tremendously hard Big Brother works to control things. The language is being reconstructed, history books are being rewritten, and so on. Look around us today and we see that this isn't necessary. All that's necessary is to make the media (in the broadest definition) seem more useful or attractive that direct experience. Look at how many people game online, or…ask questions via the computer. ;-) Now imagine that if there were a subtle distortion—even an accidental one—how that would affect reality. Think of a GPS locator in a car. If it goes wrong, you get lost.