Tonight on national television the President will exercise his constitutional duty to "from time to time give to the congress information of the state of the union." (Article II Section 3) I recommend that everyone watch it because next class we are going to talk about it and what role the media plays in informing the public. You would think that it is difficult to be biased about a speech that has not even happened yet, but here we are. Read the following four articles from MSNBC, CNN, NPR, and FoxNews, and keep in mind, they are all reporting on the same event that has not even taken place yet.
Consider the following questions while keeping in mind that you must provide evidence for your opinions and analysis.
1. Is there evidence of bias in any of these articles? If so, explain.
2. If we are aware of bias, and account for it in our analysis, does it matter that it is there?
3. Should journalists work to cover stories in an entirely unbiased fashion?
4. What is the main goal for each of these articles? To inform and prepare the public before they watch it? To stir controversy so you come back for more when it (the State of the Union) is over? To drive home party line talking points?
5. Was I biased in my presentation of these articles?
Also, rank them below (in your opinion) from most biased (1) to least biased (4).
Comments, questions, concerns and relevant links welcomed below!!
4 comments:
The way I would order it is The Article with MSNBC,FoxNews,CNN,and NPR. MSNBC seemed to show excitement with what the president was planning to do. When they mentioned Republicans they critized how they were bringing Ted Nugent (Even the Titles were critizing them).Fox News tried to make what they thought Obama was talking about seem like a bad idea with a poll done on their website. They said people taking the poll disagreed with Obama, but since the poll was done on the Fox News website then of course they wouldn't agree with Obama. CNN was almost unbiased except for the remark of how Obama has some points tallied against the Republicans (This made the article me seem a little to the left). NPR did the best job and the article to me seemed unbiased.
Fox threw themselves out of the race for having an unbiased article after putting 'investments' in quotation marks - the biased polls or "barbed inaugural address" line only pushed themselves further into the right. MSNBC and CNN were each pushing to the left. MSNBC jabbed at Rubio a couple times with parenthetical thoughts and it was not counteracted by negative thoughts towards Obama. CNN did a decent job at reporting. The article was not overly zealous by bragging about Obama - they even called him out by stating he will probably beat around the bush with some social issues. However, they lost me with the outfit commentary about Michelle Obama's outfits. Stupidity. NPR did the best job at not picking a side. I thought they put the information out well and I could just breeze through it without a weird comment I needed to go back and look at.
In the very first paragraph of the NBC article they seem to start off biased about their comment concerning President Bush and his attempts at social security reform, when they say "for Bill Clinton, it was education reform (which failed); and for George W. Bush, it was Social Security reform (which crashed and burned)". Instead of simply saying that Bush's reform failed such as they do for Bill Clinton they take it a step further and seem to put emphasis on his failure. They also attack Marco Rubio's ideals later on in the article concerning the tea party.
CNN does a much better job reporting the facts and what will be discussed during the state of the union without adding in their opinions. That is, until the last paragraph concerning Michelle Obama's outfit. Who the heck cares? To their credit they do say that serious people will not care on this matter
I believe that NPR did the best job reporting the information that will deal with the state of the union. They outlined each issue by presenting real instances that applied and what Obama wishes to change concerning that issue.
Fox is in the same boat as CNN regarding bias. Through out the article they seem to ridicule President Obama's policies with comments such as "If not careful, the president could further antagonize Republicans who say cutting spending should be priority ". This particular comment seems to have some of the writers opinion in the wording.
I would order these articles from greatest biased to least biased as Fox, NBC, CNN, than NPR.
If we are aware of the bias in an article I believe we can read past the authors opinion and pick out the facts. If we could remove bias from articles it would help further the proper instillment of the reader's political ideals.
Authors should always try to write as unbiased as possible but should not be expected to write with out some biased shown in their article. The word biased has a negative connotation on it but really all a biased is in an article is the authors opinion. It is natural for a author to add their opinion into an article because a good majority of them became an author to spread their opinions to other people.
For me, the most bias is present in the MSNBC article, followed by Fox News, CNN and NPR.
The MSNBC article really seemed to champion the president. They describe him as a no compromises guy who will be able to garner the support of both the Republicans and the Democrats. Then they mentioned the invitation of Ted Nugent, a strong critic of Obama and the Democrat party, to the State of the Union address and even called him an "unnecessary distraction". Then they also mentioned that Republicans were going to request a "hold" on Chuck Hagel's election to defense secretary and even had a whole paragraph explaining what it is.
The Fox News Article did try not to sound as biased, but they weren't too keen on Obama's agenda. One thing I noticed is that they included a poll they was conducted on their site. This poll is not valid because the people that visit the site tend to be Republicans, and furthermore only people that care about it would vote. The choices in the poll most likely had wording bias. Obviously people would vote for a choice that spends less money.
In the CNN article, the first point mentioned that "Republicans are bracing to play victim" if they get the blame for out of control spending. They assume they aren't going to bring up reasonable and arguable points. The author also mentioned that Obama is going to have some points against the Republicans.
NPR did the best job of delivering an unbiased article. Though there still was a hint of bias in the Gun Control and Climate Change sections it was relatively unbiased compared to the other articles. They appealed to gun control by mentioning a speech Obama delivered to house Democrats about more innocent children dying if regulations on guns aren't passed. They also called the Republicans in the Senate filibusters, and saying they're not going to be won over by Obama.
Bias in articles is fairly subtle ad hominem. To those without opinions who wish to learn more about a topic, it would be best for them to be exposed to unbiased articles so they can form an opinion. I believe bias renders an article tainted. The author's bellyaching is prevalent and it just makes it uncomfortable to read.
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