Category: Week 3 (Page 1 of 2)

I looked at Fox News’ and CNN’s coverage of Hillary Clinton’s release of her book, What Happened. What is interesting about these two articles is that they both include an interview with the same person, Jonathan Allen.  He is one of the co-authors of a book about the Clinton campaign, and is being interviewed by these news networks about Clinton’s new book.

In Allen’s interview with CNN, he talks about how Clinton blames Bernie Sanders partly for her loss, as he “kept hitting her at quite possibly the worst possible time during the campaign.”  Even after he made an endorsement for her, Allen claims that Sanders didn’t completely support her, and he made that clear to his supporters.  Allen also talks about some of the “self inflicted wounds” that Clinton caused during her campaign, and that she “lacked a message and message discipline.”  He agrees with Hillary’s claim that Comey and Russian interference caused her the election, but Allen adds that they weren’t the only factors.  Allen talks about the email scandal and how it ultimately doomed her, and that it was a bad mistake.

In the Fox News article, it starts out saying that Clinton takes the full blame for her loss, but also manages to blame “everyone and everything from FBI Director James Comey to Russian hackers to Bernie Sanders to misogyny.”  Allen is even quoted saying, “Even when she’s not saying it directly, you just go through page after page after page where it’s always someone else’s fault.”  Allen also suggests that Clinton has never acknowledged that she “simply lacked a message that resonated with voters.”

Overall, the information in both of these articles isn’t that different, but the Fox News article definitely says most of the things in a more harsh and critical way than CNN does.  Some of Allen’s statements in the Fox article are more critical of Clinton “blaming” other people for her loss instead of taking the blame on herself for not having a message that resonated with voters.  Allen’s statements in the CNN article seem to back up Clinton’s claims that she is making in her book while also adding reasons why some of the blame belongs to her also.  The article titles also differ in message, as the CNN title is questioning if what Clinton says happened really happened.  On the other hand, the Fox article’s title uses the word “excuses” and includes a quote saying, “It’s Always Someone Else’s Fault.”

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/12/politics/clinton-what-happened-q-and-a/index.html

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/09/12/hillary-clinton-book-what-happened-shattered-author-her-excuses-blame-game

I compared two news articles written today about the defacement of a statue of Christopher Columbus in our own Central Park. The first article is from the Gothamist, a neutral to left leaning news blog, while the second is from Breitbart, a far-right news/editorial website. While both articles report on the general details of the incident, they differ wildly in their analysis of the implications of the incident, as well as in their portrayals of the parties involved.

The first noticeable difference is in the headline of each article. While both articles use the word “vandalize” to describe the actions taken upon the statue, only the Gothamist mentions the message “Hate Will Not Be Tolerated”. While the contents of a graffito don’t negate the legal consequences of the crime, the message, in a vacuum, is generally one that most people could agree with. One could wonder if Breitbart left it out on purpose, or if the Gothamist put it in on purpose, as they did neglect to also mention the red hands in the headline.

The Breitbart article very quickly implied a cause-and-effect relationship between Bill de Blasio’s announcement of a commission to review “symbols of hate” in New York City, and specifically pointed out his failure to specifically state whether or not that specific statue would be removed. On the other hand, the Gothamist first quoted a resident who supported the actions taken by the vandals, while mentioning de Blasio’s previous comments parenthetical at the end of the article. These differences could mean that Breitbart is biased against de Blasio, and sought to implicate him in this crime, or that the Gothamist is supportive of both de Blasio and the incident, taking care to provide a supportive voice and minimizing any connection to the crime to the Mayor’s comments.

Barnes, D., & Whitford, E. (2017, September 12). Christopher Columbus Statue In Central Park Vandalized With “Bloody” Hands & Message: “Hate Will Not Be Tolerated.” Retrieved September 13, 2017, from http://gothamist.com/2017/09/12/columbus_statue_central_park.php

Houston, W. T. (2017, September 12). Statue of Christopher Columbus Vandalized in New York’s Central Park. Retrieved September 13, 2017, from http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/12/statue-christopher-columbus-vandalized-new-yorks-central-park/

The articles that I read were about Trump’s recent decision to end the DACA program after six months. These articles came from NBC News and Fox News.

NBC News’s article was titled “Trump Ends DACA Program, No New Applications Accepted.” By reading the article, I got the sense that the writer supported DACA. This was due to the fact that the writer cast aside Trump’s idea on the matter as confusing and “all over the map” while emphasizing Jeff Sessions’s strong hostility towards the DACA program. Additionally, the article presents a lot of quotes and opinions from both Democrat and Republican politicians in favor of the program. The author also includes the fact that DACA recipients whose benefits will expire by March 5, 2018 can file a renewal before October 5, 2017. This shows sympathy and support for those who are and will be affected by this decision.

Fox News’s article was titled “What Is DACA and Why Is the Trump Administration Ending It?” The way in which this article was written differed greatly from NBC’s article. For starters, the author of this article uses the word “amnesty” to help explain what the DACA program was. When compared to what the DACA program actually does and how people have typically used the word when describing the program, “amnesty” is used in this article with a negative connotation. Additionally, the article uses the word “minors” to refer to the children recipients of DACA. The diction of the author forces a more political responsibility upon the children who have received DACA. Unlike NBC’s article, Fox’s article has many quotes from politicians, mostly from the Republican party, sharing their support for the dismantling of DACA. This shows that the author was not very supportive of DACA and wanted to focus on the negativity around it.

Citations:

Edelman, Adam. “Trump Ends DACA Program, No New Applications Accepted”. NBC News. 5 Sept., 2017. Retrieved from: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/trump-dreamers-daca-immigration-announcement-n798686

Schallhorn, Kaitlyn. “What Is DACA and Why Is the Trump Administration Ending It?” Fox News Politics. 7 Sept., 2017. Retrieved from: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/09/07/what-is-daca-and-why-is-trump-administration-ending-it.html

The two articles I discovered centered around the controversial debate surrounding abortion.  The issues surrounding this debate are shrouded by two radically different views: pro-life and pro-choice.  Those who are pro-life are opposed to abortion and those who are pro-choice are in favor of a woman’s right to have an abortion.  Some of the reasons why this a topic for debate have to do with the definition of when human-life begins, the definition of murder, and the moral grounds of having an abortion.  The articles “Misconceptions About Abortion”, which was released/published by the Pro-Choice Action Network (a pro-choice organization in Canada), and “The Ultimate Guide to Why Abortion is Wrong, and How to Argue in Favor of Life”, which was published by Life Site News, a ” non-profit Internet service dedicated to issues of culture, life, and family” that “emphasizes the social worth of traditional Judeo-Christian principles”, has wide use of biased-language that highlights the extremely different views/sides between each side.

In the article “Misconceptions About Abortion”, it is quite obvious from the title and the source of the article that this was biased towards the pro-choice view/prospective.  “Misconceptions About Abortion” is structured in such a way that it first states the argument for a pro-life view and the counter argument for the pro-choice view.  For example, the argument “Abortion is the murder of a person” is presented and then followed by “Personhood at conception is a religious belief, not a provable biological fact.”  This of course, is vastly different from the other article “The Ultimate Guide to Why Abortion is Wrong…”  This article was similarly structured and has one part of the article/series titled “The fetus may be human, but it isn’t a person” which was counter-argued with his opinions and views.  The article was published by a self-proclaimed “pro-choice apologist” named Randy Alcorn.  He compares the argument for fetuses not being human to the Jews not being considered humans in the Holocaust and African-slaves with the trans-Atlantic slave trade.  It is obvious from the opinions provided by Alcorn in this article that this was written for the pro-life argument.   Both articles presented their ideas on the legality and morality of abortion in ways that were extreme and obviously in favor of their respective views.

Citations:

Misconceptions About Abortion. (n.d.). Retrieved September 12, 2017, from http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-                                                    canada.org/abortioninfo/misconce.shtml

The ultimate guide to why abortion is wrong, and how to argue in favor of life. (n.d.). Retrieved September 12, 2017, from                                      https://www.lifesitenews.com/resources/abortion/pro-life-101-the-ultimate-guide-to-why-abortion-is-wrong-and-how-                      to-fight-for-life

I looked at two news article about the U.S. pulling out of the climate change from the Huffington Post and Fox News. I knew these two sources were on the opposite ends of the spectrum, but the bias in them was evident. The title’s themselves showed how much their views differed. The Huffington Post was titled “Donald Trump Pulls U.S. Out of Paris Accord in Crushing Blow to Climate Fight” while the Fox News article was titled “Trump Pulls Out of Paris Climate Deal and Does Something  Right (and Brave)”. Both articles use very different language while addressing Trump’s decision. The Huffington Post uses words such as “crushing, traumatic and devastating” while referring to the presidents decision to pull out.  On the other hand, Fox News praises this idea and uses words such as brave and smart. Both these articles also show how differently they view climate change the Huffington Post talks about how if the U.S. doesn’t stop  these carbon emissions we are going to a bad place. Fox News doesn’t even mention the negative aspects of climate change only that it doesn’t seem to be that large of an issue. Furthermore, both articles show bias in their views towards the president. The Huffington Post refers to Trump as someone with his own agenda and repeatedly portray him as this negative figure. Fox News had nothing but kind things to say about the president.  Although they didn’t insult our president they had no problem insulting democrats and placing the blame on them. While comparing these two articles I saw how it was obvious which opinion each news source held, but the Huffington Post had other people backing up  their opinions, while Fox News had only one person commenting on this story.

Citations:

Erickson, Erick. “Trump pulls out of Paris climate deal and does something right (and brave).” Fox News, FOX News Network, 1 June 2017, www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/06/01/trump-pulls-out-paris-climate-deal-and-does-something-right-and-brave.html. Accessed 12 Sept. 2017.

Kaufman, Alexander C. “Donald Trump Pulls U.S. Out Of Paris Accord In Crushing Blow To Climate Fight.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 1 June 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-paris-agreement-global-warming_us_593030dae4b07572bdbf9a33. Accessed 12 Sept. 2017.

The articles that I decided to compare were The Blaze’s, “Bill Nye blames powerful hurricanes on climate change — then a real scientist shuts him down” and The New York Times article, “Hurricane Irma Linked to Climate Change? For Some, a Very ‘Insensitive’ Question.” Both articles discuss the possibility that Irma was a result of climate change. The article in the Blaze discusses how Bill Nye claims that the strength of the hurricane was due to climate change and dismisses this idea by introducing the tweets of another scientist, Ryan Maue. The author uses the subheading, “Everything is climate change.” He ignores the possibility of the issue by asserting that Bill Nye considers everything to be a result of climate change. The author openly states that Bill Nye is “plain wrong,” a “crusader,” and rejects “anything other than his own version of science.” In the article’s title, the author even dismisses Bill Nye as a scientist by stating that his ideas were rejected by a “real scientist.”

On the other hand, the article presented in the NYT analyzes Scott Pruitt’s comment stating that talking about climate change is insensitive during such a horrible storm. The authors take it as a given that climate change is not a hoax and instead pokes at how people in Washington seem to believe that the issue is political. They also make it a point to introduce the Republican mayor of Miami, who was directly affected by the storm, stating that this is the time to talk about it. They use terms like important and obligated when describing the discussion of climate change. Instead of using negative words like wrong and personally attacking Pruitt, they introduce evidence as to why they believe he is incorrect or why others disagree with him. Additionally, they use words like “pretending,” and “risks” which to me indicates that they assume that individuals who speak out against climate change don’t truly believe that it is a hoax. It is clear that both of these articles are biased on completely different sides of the spectrum based on the content and language that the authors chose to use.

Enloe , C. (2017, September 10). Bill Nye blames powerful hurricanes on climate change — then a real scientist shuts him down. The Blaze. Retrieved September 11, 2017, from http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/09/10/bill-nye-blames-powerful-hurricanes-on-climate-change-then-a-real-scientist-shuts-him-down/

Friedman, L. (2017, September 11). Hurricane Irma Linked to Climate Change? For Some, a  Very ‘Insensitive’ Question. The New York Times. Retrieved September 11, 2017, from   https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/climate/hurricane-irma-climate-change.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fclimate

The two articles I chose report on Trump withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)— an international trade agreement between 12 nations that border the Pacific Ocean. The article entitled, “Trump Abandons Trans-Pacific Partnership, Obama’s Signature Trade Deal,” from The New York Times, portrays the trade pact in a good light and as a major accomplishment of Obama, while the article, “Trump Withdraws U.S. From Trans-Pacific Partnership,” focuses more on Trump and how he fulfilled a campaign promise by withdrawing the U.S. from the TPP. The NYT article uses words like “traditional, bipartisan trade policy” to imply that the trade agreement was something that the establishment in both parties considered to be beneficial and thus shouldn’t have been scrapped. Furthermore, I noticed that this article describes the arguments of free-trade advocates more than those of critics of free trade and, in particular, the TPP. For example, the article cites more statements from Obama officials than from Trump officials. On the other hand, the Fox News article seems to be biased in favor of Trump’s decision. Unlike the NYT article, this article does not articulate any benefits of having the TPP. Furthermore, the Fox article seems to praise Trump in a subtle way and casts him as a powerful figure who’s resolute in his decisions. For instance, it states, “…Mr. Trump’s decision to bury Mr. Obama’s agreement in his first week shows he is serious about shifting U.S. trade policy…with the potential for big tariffs if those countries don’t come to the table ready to make concessions.” As one can see, the author of this article seems to covertly approve of Trump’s decision.

“Trump Withdraws U.S. From Trans-Pacific Partnership.” Fox Business, Fox Business, 23 Jan. 2017, www.foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/01/23/trump-withdraws-u-s-from-trans-pacific-partnership.html.

Baker, Peter. “Trump Abandons Trans-Pacific Partnership, Obama’s Signature Trade Deal.”The New York Times, The New York Times, 23 Jan. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/us/politics/tpp-trump-trade-nafta.html?mcubz=0.

The two news platforms I chose to study were FOX News and CNN. Before even selecting an article I noticed the differences on the home page and how they chose to highlight and bring certain headlines to the forefront rather than others.

On CNN, Hurricane Irma covers the entire page with live updates, headlines, and various articles. In contrast to that, FOX News maximized the headers with whats concerning the White House.  News outlets tend to promote what they believe their viewers will take more interest in, so it is quite possible that to adhere to the demands of consumers, FOX chose to emphasize the White House over the case of Hurricane Irma and its impact. Perhaps the demographic of those that follow FOX News are not being affected by the storm or rather FOX has a motive which is to promote the White House. That in itself is bias as the news outlet is choosing to showcase what they believe is more important or will allow them to rake in more money.

What both CNN and FOX shared was the announcement of the iPhone 8 though their methods of promoting the news diverged. FOX news emphasized a live blog with announcements coming in as they receive them while CNN already had an article put together with the announcements in that format. The FOX ‘article’ would seem to have less bias due to the layout and method of conveying the information. They chose to use quotations from Apple which eliminated any bias of their own all together. CNN presented the facts also, but chose to bring in comparison of Steve Jobs’ vision for the iPhone with the release of this new device. Though this is not necessarily bias, the information they brought in is a method to sway readers’ opinions towards buying the iPhone because of sentimentality over Steve Jobs’ vision.

The controversial issue of the Pepsi ad was something that few people supported. However, there is still some bias in the ways that the two articles here discuss the issue. The New York Times article uses words such as “tone-deaf” and “trivializing” to describe the way that Pepsi made it seem as if can of soda was all that it took to overcome matters of protest. The Wired article also uses negative words such as “tone-deaf” and “gauche,” but this article steers their focus in a more positive direction by saying this situation ultimately brought people together because it was one of the few times that almost everyone can agree to disagree on something. “The reaction to Pepsi’s ad, not the ad itself, brought people together. That’s refreshing” (Wired).

Victor, Daniel. “Pepsi Pulls Ad Accused of Trivializing Black Lives Matter.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Apr. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/business/kendall-jenner-pepsi-ad.html?mcubz=3.

Watercutter, Angela. “Pepsi’s New Kendall Jenner Ad Was So Bad It Actually United the Internet.” Wired, Conde Nast, 11 Sept. 2017, www.wired.com/2017/04/pepsi-ad-internet-response/.