Evaluating News Sources
Using the Evaluating News Sources handout from class, choose five media outlets from across the political spectrum — one or two from the left/liberal side, one or two mainstream and one or two from the right/conservative side.
Compare/contrast the coverage of one day's news across the five outlets. How is the news alike? How is it different? Were some items left out? Why? Can you tell where the media outlet lines up (liberal, conservative, neutral)? How and why?
Do this for two days, so you'll have 10 total observations. Post those here, and in conclusion, tell me whether you think the chart is accurate.
Due by 11 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 6.
Compare/contrast the coverage of one day's news across the five outlets. How is the news alike? How is it different? Were some items left out? Why? Can you tell where the media outlet lines up (liberal, conservative, neutral)? How and why?
Do this for two days, so you'll have 10 total observations. Post those here, and in conclusion, tell me whether you think the chart is accurate.
Due by 11 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 6.
Firstly, the extremely far right media seems to use venomous or sensational headlines directed at another party or something that backs their own opinion. For example, when going to InfoWars one is immediately greeted with lines such as “THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA DOESN’T DESERVE OUR RESPECT OR TRUST” or “TRUMP TAX PLAN MEETS FAKE NEWS” upon further inspection of such articles, they aren’t reveled to have much meat to them. Cutting away all the direct insults, opinions, and usage of the term ‘fake news’ leaves the reader with broken sentences and predicates. Going down to a simply right leaning media outlet puts things in a less opinionated light. Immediately something like “Supreme Court Lets Trump Travel Ban Take Effect for Now” is presented to the user. This is a much more ethical way to present this situation than the IW headline “VICTORY: SUPREME COURT RULES TRUMP TRAVEL BAN TO GO INTO FULL EFFECT” the IW article reads much more as a concrete victory for Trump against ‘the machine’ so to speak, rather than a temporary emergency act like WSJ: “Justices grant emergency request from the administration to enforce latest rules while litigation continues”. The WSJ while still in their article and headlines implicate this is all a good thing, mostly keep their distance from opinion and mostly report just what is happening/has happened.
ReplyDeleteFor the extremely far left, the first noticeable thing is the lack of news on any victory from the Trump administration on their front page or at all. When opening Vox there reads nothing from a travel ban or any of the admins dissing of ‘fake news’. Instead the user is greeted foremost with articles such as “The tweet in which Trump maybe admitted to obstruction of justice, explained” or “Trump’s lawyer: the president can’t obstruct justice. 13 legal experts: yes, he can.”. The accusatory tone is littered all throughout the headlines and articles with little to no unbiased news to be found. What little unbiased news presented there, is only used to further enforce the position of the article instead of the story itself. Though bringing things a little closer to the middle though still to the left, one can see the accusatory tone is lesser, but overall, it’s still a noticeably left playing field. For example, CNN is actually covering the travel ban victory, but it is not the biggest headline to be seen. The Muller investigation takes the lime light for more than a few articles showcasing different angles of the story some of which paint things slightly against the rest of the Trump admin that have yet to be mentioned or found guilty. This shows a bit of an accusatory tone, but it is not unfounded in the article. Though this does show that this outlet is capable of bias. That said, it’s not too far gone like it’s other left predecessor.
Finally, it seems there is a middle ground with publications like the New York Times showcasing wat is happening in the news with no real favor to one side or another. It seems here there is genuine reporting on the events transpiring in America. Though their editorials are present on the front of the webpage, they are clearly advertised as opinion and made smaller than the actual news headlines.
Ryan Bradford
ReplyDeleteFor my first review I chose the media’s coverage of Michael Flynn Pleading Guilty on Dec. 1, and picked the following news sources: The Huffington Post, MSNBC, npr, Fox News, and The BLAZE.
They all gave the gist of the story but all that really requires is the title. The most in depth was probably npr, which felt the most information heavy. The Huffington Post was the overall best in my opinion, with all the pertinent information in an easy to digest fashion. MSNBC was clearly leaning to the left and although I feel the same way, I didn’t care for the obvious slant from a big news network.
Fox News was better than I expected but still used quotes that felt unnecessary and slanted towards the right. Finally, was The BLAZE which had the least amount of information. It had a total of eight sentences with the other sources having well over eight paragraphs. As a result, it also was severely lacking in content.
For the next media coverage, I chose the story of Trump’s Travel Ban Being Approved by the Supreme Court on Dec. 4, and went with the same news sources except subbing The Atlantic for MSNBC and The BLAZE with Breitbart.
The event was the top story or one of the top stories for each of the news sources except for The Atlantic, they didn’t have a story on it at the time of writing this. I presume they just haven’t gotten to it yet.
Breitbart was lacking in depth compared to the other sources but still got the story across. They also failed to mention that the courts are still evaluating whether it is legal.
The coverage length felt equal and the coverage of this event didn’t feel biased with the exception of Breitbart’s coverage which only included a quote praising the decision from Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
I feel that the placement of them is mostly accurate. I would move MSNBC to the left more. I also believe the Huffington Post is deserving of more praise (going by the chart that lowers them; I believe the other chart more accurate). Also perhaps lower The Atlantic considering they didn’t have anything on a major news story hours after it occurred.
News coverage can and will vary depending on which outlet is looked at. This makes a difference because they will either simply not think something is important or view it differently based on conservative versus liberal viewpoints. The newspapers I chose to look at for two days were FOX news, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CNN, and MSNBC. Each of these basically included the same content, but with a few exceptions. For example, FOX news and the Wall Street Journal did not include any celebrity coverage in their front pages but the others did. I believe the chart we looked at without the circles was the most accurate because it stated that CNN was more left and that FOX news was more right, as opposed to the other chart that said CNN was neutral. On Sunday, December 3, the biggest headline on the FOX news website said, “TRUMP WILL TAKE CARE OF IT.” This makes it slightly evident that this news outlet is republican based because if they didn’t believe it, they wouldn’t have put it as a headline. Meanwhile, the article titled “How Tax Bill Emerged from a Late Night of Deal Making” seemed like it could be slightly defending any negative comments about the tax bill, while still leaving it open for interpretation.The chart we discussed stated that WSJ leans right but I viewed it as more neutral. The main CNN article that I noticed was “Warner: Why didn’t Trump act sooner on Flynn?” As opposed to FOX stating a positive quote from President Trump, this is a slightly negative Trump report, indicating that he did not perform well enough and that they probably lean democratically because they are not in support of his actions. These are just a few specific examples but the other two, USA Today and MSNBC, seemed to stay true to the statements from the chart. USA Today had a variety of coverage while MSNBC focused mainly on President Trump and did not seem in support of him very much. The next day, December 4, was basically the same report. FOX news was right, WSJ and USA Today were neutral (with WSJ leaning left), and CNN and MSNBC were left. FOX news’s first two articles visible to me were about the travel ban and then Mueller, while CNN’s first two were vice versa. Each outlet had the same variety of coverage as in the day before. However, MSNBC included less negative speech about President Trump and replaced it with a little more variety of events.
ReplyDeleteIM GOING TO POST MY ANSWER IN TWO DIFFERENT COMMENTS
ReplyDeleteThe first topic that I covered was the sexual assault accusations against Republican Party's Roy Moore. I looked at coverage from Vox, CNN, Abc News, Fox, and The Blaze.
Vox's coverage was surprisingly pretty good in my opinion. They went into depth of the assault accusations (who, when, how old they were, etc). They also talked about the effect that the publicity of the accusations had on political polls. As well as a background on Moore and how the Republican Party responded.
The Blaze went into far less detail about the actual accusations. Their report focused more on Trump's support of Moore and the cause-effects of that. Trump tweeted, "congress needs the republican vote that Moore will provide so that the Trump campaign can move forward." Their report seemed more right wing, as they also talked about other Republican's views on the issues and Moore's stance.
CNN went into far less detail about what actually happened. They seemed to be leaning a little more towards the left. Their coverage consisted heavily of people's responses to the alleged sexual assaults.
Fox News was similar to CNN. They reported a lot on the twitter drama that has arisen between the politicians. I felt that they did not provide enough details about the alleged sexual assaults and what all that entailed.
ABC News, I felt like, did a pretty good job on reporting the facts with- not none but less- bias than the other News outlets. They covered the story of the alleged sexual assaults well, but they also covered the aftermath well. They included details about the women's age, instances of possible proof of the relationships, and how many women eventually came forward. They also included the views of other politicians on the matter, but did not focus too much on those.
On the first day of observation I decided to start off with looking at the Infowars website. The site was easy to navigate, but surprisingly their “breaking news” wasn’t on the homepage. The homepage featured Alex Jones and his radio show. The “breaking news” was a video about the Texas State University Star and their recently published editorial. The mentioned editorial was extremely anti-white and a reporter from Infowars went around campus asking students how they felt about the article. The reporter was very clearly biased and was making people look bad on camera by making comments that degrade anyone that does not support his beliefs. As a journalism major I think this is quite a newsworthy story, however the way it was covered by Infowars to further support their right-wing views degraded the quality of the story. Since this story intrigued me I looked to see if it was on any of the other news sources. When looking I discovered that none of the other sources covered this story. However, most of them had a recent story about the death of a student at Texas State University, who was pledging a fraternity. All greek life activities have been suspended because of his death and alcohol is thought to have played a part in this death. CNN, Fox, and Buzzfeed all covered this story in a respectful manner. Infowars didn’t cover this story, however they covered a story that is used as political propaganda at the same University. Infowars is clearly an untrustworthy source that only cares about its political agenda. Looking into other news sources, CNN and Fox news had the same general stories. CNN and Fox, however, slightly show their political views in the news, based on content and the location of each story on the website. The Associated Press had a website that was a little hard to navigate, but they overall had the most neutral coverage. Buzzfeed was clearly the most liberal of the sources and had some questionable newsworthy stories. One “news” story was about a woman who made artistic hairstyles, one of which was made to look like two middle fingers.
ReplyDeleteOn day two I started with the Associated Press. Their website is quite difficult to navigate, but the content is by far the most neutral. It has content that does not side with any political party nor does it but any politicians above others. The coverage overall covers politics, entertainment, and sports on a large enough scale that there is something for everyone. I particularly enjoyed the article they had on upcoming supreme court case regarding the gay couple that was denied service at a cake shop. Looking at Fox news the top several stories were Trump related. Given our current political climate the topic of Trump is quite popular but presenting him in a rather bias light and making him cover most of the main page is a little excessive. I also think their choice of what stories are higher up on the page should be altered. The story about the man assembled in Chicago should be higher up than college football. I prefered CNN’s overall content layout much more. They had news on Trump, but they also had other political news that didn’t focus on the president. CNN also had the lawsuit involving the founder of a Neo-Nazi website, as one of the top stories. This is really important to all US citizens, because the results of the lawsuit can affect how people view our first amendment rights. This case can further limit our freedom of speech and it is important to stay updated on this kind of thing. Looking at InfoWars again today I am not surprised about its placement on the chart provided in class. The first video on the site today was an Alex Jones video. In this video he presented his conspiracy theory that people are going to kill the president or illegally remove him from office, as actual news. His opinion on such matters is irrelevant and not backed up by facts. This site as a whole is worthless in regards to quality news. Looking at other questionable news sources, Buzzfeed was once again rather liberal and full of irrelevant news. The site is primarily full of stories focusing solely on entertainment For instance, one of the top stories was about how it looked like Mariah Carey was sitting in an invisible chair. Much like InfoWars this site is not a good news source, however it is not as hateful and condensing as InfoWars.
ReplyDeleteFrom my two days of reading across all these news platforms it is clear the charts provided to us in class were quite accurate. AP is definitely the most neutral of all the sources and Buzzfeed and InfoWars are identify poor quality news. I also agree that CNN and Fox News are borderline high quality and mixed quality sources.
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ReplyDeleteall of the sources are bias in there own way regardless of what story's I followed. my sources were NEW YORK POST, MSNBC, CBS NEWS, FOXNEWS, FORBES, CNN, I felt like on all the story's I followed the sources all picked a side. I think fox was the worst when it came to piking a side. it was not that they aired false information it was just that they seemed to choose which facts they wanted to air. they did not want to air all the information that would go against what they seemed to be standing for. most of the sources all had the same news when I compared information on the same stories. if It was a top story on MSNBC it was a top story on the NEW YORK POST. they said the same information in their on way for the most part. but on some stories mainly political stories involving trump most news sources would seem to pick a side. I noticed a lot of limited information some stories were incomplete and all the facts were not stated. most would not include any facts that went against what they were believing. I felt CNN was the most useful for me. CNN could be bias but I think they had the most information. they were the most on point. I think in todays world when it comes to news you have to pick the best source that you can relate too or agree with. none of them simply stated the news without picking a side or being bias even if it was just a little. I felt like CNN was the most on point
ReplyDeleteMy sources were: The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed, Info Wars, & AP.
ReplyDeleteDay 1:
In looking for differences, I quickly noticed that the left side (liberal) media outlets tended to post more about the recent sexual allegations and current events going on with media/tech companies, while the right side (conservative) media had a lot more posts that cover some very specific topics involving Trump and also the GOP. Meanwhile, the mainstream news had a wider variety of topics and I didn’t see a cluster of posts about Trump or sexual accusations. The similarity between these 5 sites was mostly in the coverage of Trump and how the headlines were worded, as they were almost word for word. I noticed that some sites near the middle of the chart (mainstream/leans left) didn’t cover or feature any stories about recent sexual allegations, however the other sites I looked at all covered this topic. I have a feeling that this could’ve been left out due to the few sites feeling that this topic wasn’t as relevant as some others that they were covering, such as recent news about Michael Flynn.
Day 2:
Today, I went straight back to the left leaner (liberal) outlets first, and noticed the same kind of stories as day 1. Especially on BuzzFeed they have many posts that aren’t even relevant to politics/important events but rather cover stories like “17 Gifts for Your Friends Who Have Their Shit Together” and I’m not interested in getting my news from a site that posts articles like this instead of focusing more on the important topics. The right leaner (conservative) medias’ info wasn’t much better, but made for a better read than BuzzFeed. They had more stories pertaining to Trump and politics but one crazy headline drew my attention “Shock Video: Police Shoot Dog, Force Owner to Cut Off Its Head”, now obviously, a story like this doesn’t sound very credible to me, and quickly showed me how unreliable InfoWars.com is. The mainstream site I observed, AP, still covered a variety of stories but they were all pertained to our government and current events both in America and countries that are relevant to us. One story that I saw on several sites was “Border arrests fall, deportations soar in Trump’s year” and this was the easiest similarity to spot today. I feel that the media outlets were placed correctly in the chart, but that BuzzFeed should be all the way to the left under “Garbage Left” rather than closer to “Hyper-Partisan” simply because it’s not a great source at all, unless you’re looking for a quiz called “What Kind of Archetypal Mean Girl Are You?”
Kennadi Harris
ReplyDeleteThe news sources that I analyzed over this two day period are CNN, Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and USA Today. On the first day I saw a clear difference upon all of the sources and noticed key things that separated them. First off with CNN, I immediately noticed a lot of post about Trump. The headlines ranged from a neutral view to slightly negative which makes sense since Trump demonizes CNN as a news source.The coverage on Trump’s associate Flynn and his plea was partially why Trump flooded the headlines .Then I also noticed a lot of opinion stories. There was many topics presented on the front page but it was still a healthy balance between news and other topics. The second source I observed, The Atlantic, had a more light hearted and sometimes even comical approach to news. The stories about Trump were mostly neutral and without bias, including the Flynn coverage. The stories were also more introspective. The Atlantic was the only publication I seen that covered a police shooting that did not involve race. USA Today showed much coverage on sports, being that this was a Sunday. I also noticed product reviews and neutral headlines including the Flynn coverage. I would say that USA Today is probably the most family-friendly source due to it relatability to many ages. The Wall Street Journal immediately struck me as a more professionally publication due to the style and format as well as subject matter and wording. There were positive to neutral stories about Trump including the Flynn coverage. This was also the only publication where I seen coverage about a Tax Bill. Fox News was my last source and I immediately noticed many crime and tragedy stories including killings and sexual harassment. There was coverage on Flynn and neutral to positive headlines about Trump. One day one I noticed all the publications covered story about equally. Also, all except The Atlantic covered CVS buying Aetna.
On day two, CNN had much coverage on the North Korea Defectors situation. There was coverage on a Drugmaker who paid doctors with bad records to promote a pill, which I did not see anywhere else. There were stories on how Trump is endorsing Alabama’s Governor Moore and little coverage on Trump cutting back on Utah monuments. The Atlantic featured bigger coverage on Trump changing the Utah monuments. It covered Moore being endorsed. Also, The Atlantic covered CVS buying Aetna a day later than other publications however, there coverage was more introspective. USA Today featured Trump defending himself and the cut back of the monument. I also noticed many categories were presented which was overwhelming. Wall Street Journal featured more business savvy stories such as Tax changes, Trump Travel Ban, and “UN Sends Top Official to North Korea”. Fox News biggest story on the front page was a Texas cop getting shot and killed. There was also coverage on southern California fires. There was a story about a twitter Feud between Mitt Romney and Roy Moore which I have seen no where else. I also noticed a few local hero stories.
The media outlets were all different. CNN is more liberal/democrat due to the slightly negative stories on Trump and stories that favor the people. The Atlantic strikes me as liberal due to its introspective and slightly casual style. USA Today was neutral due to its broad coverage of many subjects and unbiased headlines. Wall Street Journal is conservative/republican due to its focus on businesses and avoidance of lifestyle type news. Fox News is republican due to its coverage of many cop tragedies and slightly positive Trump headlines. I believe the chart is right according to each source’s political views. However, as far as quality I feel like CNN should be moved to higher quality and Fox News should be moved to a lower quality.
I began my first day of observations on November 30th. I first began by visiting the Natural News site which is located on the left/liberal side of the political spectrum. Immediately after visiting the site, I could easily see that this news source was for a more liberal audience and it was definitely accurately placed on the chart. It had absolutely no headlines about President Trump or any political topics for that matter. The only thing I could find was an article titled NET NEUTRALITY is a total scam by liberty-crushing leftists: The real censorship of the internet is already being carried out by Google, Facebook and Twitter. This article was strictly written based on opinion saying things like, “people are getting all bent out of shape over a newly proposed reversal of so-called “net neutrality” laws” and accusing Google and Facebook of “guilty censorship tactics.” With this being my first time actually looking for news on the Natural News site, I was not sure if the second day would provide different articles. The second day, December 1st, I found absolutely no political news, but several medical headlines about “vaccines” and “measles.” I came to a conclusion that this would not be a site I come to educate myself on current events, but rather educate myself on different opinions of medical and environmental topics in the US.
ReplyDeleteFor my two mainstream sources, I chose to evaluate USA Today and CNN. One thing I automatically loved about USA Today is the fact that their site labels each of their articles/headlines with labels such as “Nation Recommended,” “World,” “Business,” and “Entertainment.” Unlike the articles on the Natural News website whose headlines consisted of topics such as medical advancements, USA Today’s November 30th top stories consisted of stories that dealt with President Trump and current events taking place such as “Trump weighs replacing Tillerson; House leaders call on Rep. John Conyers to resign; Sen. Al Franken faces a new allegation of inappropriate touching; Actor-singer Jim Nabors has died.” The next day, November 1st, headlines consisted of, “NY suspect planned attack for weeks; Schumer hits back at president for blaming him for attack; Lawmakers release trove of Facebook ads linked to Russia; and it's looking like Christmas in London.” Natural News and USA Today had no similarities at all. I also visited CNN’s website on both days. On November 30, one of CNN’s headline stories was Sexual harassment allegations in Washington. Just like USA Today, CNN believe the sexual harassment accusations against John Conyers was breaking news. CNN and USA had several similarities considering they are both mainstream news sources, but I did notice that CNN covered more about Trump’s reform of the tax code and his anti-Muslim retweet.
For my two choices on the right/conservative side of the spectrum I chose The Blaze and Info Wars as my news sources. Although The Blaze is on a different side of the spectrum compared to CNN and USA Today, they still thought the Conyers case was major news just like the mainstream sources. The next day, November 1st, the Blaze and Info Wars began showing similar qualities. They included a lot of articles that were opinion based that were not very educational or informational. Articles titled “THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION IS HAPPENING NOW! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?” and “CNN panel laughs at Lindsey Graham’s contradictory comments about Trump.” It is clear through the writing that they are trying to reach a specific audience, the conservatives.
I definitely think the chart is accurate. Natural News, The Blaze, and Info Wars were on two different spectrums while USA Today and CNN expressed neutral articles and did not have any extreme qualities. I believe you can have your favorite news sources, but it is important to expand your horizons to become more educated on topics and so you don’t become sheltered and one-sided.
For my overview I chose to look at two days of news coverage from the five news sources : CNN, NPR, NBC, C-SPAN, and Fox News.
ReplyDeleteDecember 4, 2017:
The first day was generally coverage of the same topics, with a few exceptions. While all five of the sources covered the national stories of Trump's say in the Michael Flynn case, Supreme Court issues, news on the GOP Tax Bill, Trump's lawyer claiming responsibility for his "problematic tweets", and CVS buying AETNA, only a few sources, such as CNN and NPR, covered international stories of the death of Yemen's former president, nuclear war warnings from North Korea, and and an airline crew spotting a North Korean missile.
There were several strange mixes of stories of less importance next to headlines of national stories of great importance. Such as an article on CNN of a teen pleading guilty of sexually assaulting 50 children next to an article about the NY Giants firing their head coach; and an article about new migraine drugs next to coverage of Trump's struggle against the FBI over the handling of the Hillary Clinton email case (on C-SPAN and NBC).
December 5, 2017:
Today several of the five news sources, such as CNN and NPR covered national stories like Yemen's ex-president passing, which was covered by them a day later than the other sources. All fives sources covered updates on the same topics as yesterday such as updates on national monument shrink, the GOP Tax Bill, and troubles with Korea and Russia.
CNN, NBC, and C-SPAN provided coverage on Trump's pending decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. NPR, C-SPAN and NBC covered the Supreme Court hearing of a baker's refusal and LGBT Rights. NBC and Fox News reported alerting news on the California wildfires currently destroying homes.
The majority of the five sources did a good job of covering the most important and alerting national and international stories. While some were more detailed than others, most of the same stories were covered thoroughly.
The news outlets that I viewed coverage over were: CNN, FOX, Red State, The New York Times, and The Vox. The first thing that i notice in CNN news coverage for the first day was about Trump and all his headlines. From the articles, I could tell that they were liberal but did their best to remain objective. The most talked about thing was Flynn and his guilty plea deal. In regards to FOX, what I noticed was that they really didn't discuss Trump's involvement with why him and Flynn are being investigated by the FBI. Through hidden language, it's almost like they believe that he is non-guilty is this situation. They reported on the tax bill, killings, sexual harassment in political leaders such as Roy Moore and John Coyers. But even then, there was more negativity and depth shed more on Coyers than Moore.
ReplyDeleteOn Day 2, I viewed Red State, Vox, and the New York Times-specifically their covering of the Supreme Court deciding to uphold Trump's travel ban. I was surprised by The Vox, which is labeled as Left Garbage, actually remained neutral. However, it was clear that it was more of an opinion piece than objectivity. I noticed that the Red State, which is hyper-partisan right, made it clear that they were conservative. I saw a lot reaching in the titles, like "Don't listen to these Anti-gun activists. Help save lives and buy your kids a toy gun for Christmas" or "Democrats are really Economic Idiots". No piece actually contained objectivity, but bias and opinion, mixed in with a little facts. Now, the New York Times, which is labeled mainstream bias, wrote from a neutral standpoint, especially about the travel ban. There was no intersection of opinion on the matter, just strictly facts and a few things about what society had to say about the decision. They did highlight that two justices didn't agree with the call, and were ordered to act quickly.
I can tell which side an outlet leans on by their choice of wording, how they rank the importance, and how long they spending talking about a certain point or person (almost like their ranting). They be speaking from bias because of their personal views and I can see that through the writing.
I really Enjoyed this assignment. I thought it was pretty fun, just thought i would get that out of the way first. Now the first day I looked at the 5 different sources was when Michael Flynn pleaded Guilty in the Russian investigation. Now as i was looking at these stories i decided to go in a certain order when i read. I started with the middle section and worked my way out and what I found was the farther i got out from the middle the more the story changed. All 5 of my sources did mention this event but once i left the middle they all had their own spin on the event. For Example this is what the AP said in it's article of Michael Flynn "Flynn didn’t speak in court, other than to say he would plead guilty." CNN had a similar statement in its coverage as well only added more detail i felt " In court Friday morning, Flynn's only comments were to answer yes and no to questions from the judge. He told the judge he has not been coerced to plead guilty or been promised a specific sentence. Flynn faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, according to federal sentencing guidelines, though the judge Friday morning stressed he could impose a harsher or lighter sentence." Now what struck me as interesting was that at least any of which i could find no one from the far left side of the chart had anything to say about this topic. I remembered in class where we talked about how these people only pick certain people to write about to get clicks so in my understanding this must not have been a big name for them to write about?
ReplyDeleteDay 2 for me was Dec. 4th. I am a big football fan and the ACLU honored Collin Kapernick in his protest to stand during the national anthem. I had been following this story for a while and was really excited to read these articles. What i found is that again each group that wrote this article gave something that the other didn't. Maybe it was a quote or they changed the wording to make it stronger or something like that. However one thing stuck out to me and it was the quotes that were used by Each. For Example CNN , Fox and , USA today both used the same quote but not the same words. This is USA Todays quote " "We all have an obligation no matter the risk, and regardless of reward, to stand up for our fellow men and women who are being oppressed with the understanding that human rights cannot be compromised," Kapernick said as he accepted the award (per the ACLU)." Now this is CNN's Quote " "We all have an obligation no matter the risk, and regardless of reward, to stand up for our fellow men and women who are being oppressed with the understanding that human rights cannot be compromised," Kapernick said." This is Fox News quote “We must confront systematic oppression as a doctor would a disease. You identify it, you call it out, you treat and you defeat it. We all have an obligation no matter the risk and regardless of reward to stand up for fell men and women who are being oppressed with the understanding that human rights cannot be compromised. In the words of Frederick Douglas, ‘If there is no struggle, there is no progress,'" he said to a standing ovation from the crowd." This is the same quote just CNN and Fox has changed the words of the quote. As far as i have seen or heard in his actual speech he never says these words once again that is from what i have seen or heard i could be wrong here. I did find that yet again the far left of the chart had nothing to say about this event either and again i wonder if it is because Kapernick is not big enough of a name to right about. I also think that it was not written about because it was something good not something bad that most of the Garbage sites like to start. I was able to find this article on Breitbart and something shocked me. I found the exact same quote in this article except check this out . "“We all have an obligation no matter the risk, and regardless of reward, to stand up for our fellow men and women who are being oppressed with the understanding that human rights cannot be compromised,” Kapernick said Sunday, while accepting the night’s courageous advocate award." Its the exact same quote as USA Today. USA Today is in the middle of the Chart and BrietBart is on the far right and yet quotes the exact same quote. Maybe they are not so much garbage right? Wrong. After looking at this article deeper it had nothing to do with Collin at all they had taken the quote and stole it in my view because they wanted to get a click. That quote is all that is really mentioned about Kapernick accepting the award it talks about the woman who gave him the award and after some research was an exact quote from a website called https://brittius.wordpress.com which in those articles you can see that this writer is trying very hard to show the democrats as awful people.
ReplyDeleteTo me the 2nd day really showed more distinct liberal and conservative views when it came to the Kapernick story. You could tell who wrote it and what they were trying to get across when it came to the story. I did find it interesting that the Far left column left both of my stories alone they didn't write anything that i could find about either topic and to me it was because to them these 2 events were not as big as say a Trump story. I feel like the chart that had AP and C-Span in the middle with Fox news a little to the write and CNN a little to the left was the more accurate chart. I think my stories showed that that chart had the major news affiliates in the right spot than did the other chart.
I chose Buzzfeed, USA Today, CNN, WSJ, and Fox News for my overview.
ReplyDeleteDay 1: The news outlets all covered the same stories, mainly about Flynn pleading guilty, Trump's viewpoints and possible involvement, and the reduction of National Monuments, and the GOP Tax Bill. The noticeable differences were the headlines, which in some cases clearly showed bias and left room for no interpretation of where they fell on the political spectrum. ("The President Stole Your Land...Patagonia says." Buzzfeed)
Day 2: Today's topics were a wide variety, once again featuring all five covering the same stories. CNN, Buzzfeed, WSJ, and USA Today's main stories were Russia's Ban from the Winter Olympics and the California wildfires. There were also a mix of international stories, such as Fox News writing that Trump was to "forge ahead with relocating US Embassy..." and other similar headlines. Something I found odd was that when I looked at the five outlets, only CNN, Buzzfeed and USA Today had stories featured big and bold about Russia and the wildfires. I noticed that WSJ and Fox News had added a story about the topics later when I checked again.
I think the chart without the circles was the most accurate. I feel like Buzzfeed and CNN should get more credit than they were given on the chart, but it was obvious that they belonged more on the liberal end of the spectrum. I agree with the position of the others as well. I personally didn't like the layout of USA Today, but that's not really a big deal, more of a personal preference. FOX News and WSJ are definitely conservative.
Evaluating News Sources *posted in 2 comments because blogspot won't take the whole thing at once*
ReplyDeleteDay 1 (using non-bubble chart):
MSNBC:
The story running on live tv at the time was on new evidence against Roy Moore, and the RNC along with President Trump deciding to support Moore again. They had a guest commentator speaking with the host about the story. The commentator gave her opinion, which leaned left and attacked the Republican Party as a whole. However the host, Lawrence O Donnell, gave the counter-argument that not all the party is bad, using Mitt Romney as an example. The overall reporting of the story by Lawrence O Donnell was fair and balanced.
FiveThirtyEight:
FiveThirtyEight reported on this story differently. They didn’t take a side and didn’t focus on the accusations, new evidence, or RNC return to funding. FiveThirtyEight did what FiveThirtyEight is known for: math. FiveThirtyEight discussed the polls on how much Alabamans care about Roy Moore’s scandals and how it will likely affect their voting habits. FiveThirtyEight’s main focus is always math and statistics, and their coverage of today’s Roy Moore events reflected that. Overall it was completely truthful, fair, and balanced. Numbers don’t lie.
Reuters:
Oh Reuters. Beautiful Reuters. Is there anything wrong with Reuters? I’ll admit I’m biased here because Reuters is my favorite news source because of its objectivity and consumability. The Reuters TV app basically creates a world newscast for you by compiling stories to your desired amount of time. Reuters’ coverage on today’s Roy Moore story was entirely objective, fair, and balanced. Reuters, being a wire service, is supposed to be entirely objective in nature and they succeed at that. Just facts, no fluff.
Rare News:
Rare News’ report on Trump endorsing Roy Moore was almost just straight up fact. No opinion or biased language was used (it should be noted that the Associated Press contributed to the report). However, at the end of the article, Rare included a “what you need to know about Roy Moore” video, which detailed his political career and his brief stint in kickboxing, but completely failed to mention sexual assault allegations. It should also be noted that the video is not dated and could have been made before allegations arose, but continuing to use it shows a slight bias. Rare’s report on Mitt Romney’s tweet against Moore was slightly biased. The report claimed Romney called out Roy Moore “and his supporters”, framing Romney in a negative light. Nowhere in Romney’s tweet are Roy Moore’s supporters attacked or even mentioned by Romney. This report used biased language and false information to convey a certain political view. Overall, Rare’s reporting was slightly biased towards the right.
The Blaze:
The Blaze’s coverage of the Roy Moore story was actually more on the objective side than I thought it would be. They reported the RNC endorsement in a somewhat positive light in the headline, but the story itself was mostly just facts. Their story on Romney’s tweet against Moore focused more on Moore’s response to Romney that what Romney said, almost framing the story as if Moore was getting the last laugh and that that was a good thing. Overall, The Blaze definitely leans right, but it’s not quite garbage.
Overall analysis:
I believe that most of the sources i looked at today were for the most part honest and balanced. If i were to change the chart, i would give MSNBC higher quality and move it to Leans Left, I would put FiveThirtyEight in the center because their website is all based on math and numbers don’t lie. I would keep Reuters where it is, and maybe move Rare to the right and down a little bit. I would also move The Blaze a little higher and a little but more left than it is.
Day 2 (using bubble chart) *part 2 of 3*
ReplyDeleteOccupy Democrats/Verified Politics:
*Occupy Democrats still use that name on their Facebook page, however they stopped using the occupydemocrats.com website in October of this year and transitioned to using verifiedpolitics.com, which was established in 2017. Both websites are formatted in the same way and appear to be posted by the same company/organization*
The top US news story of the day was Democratic representative John Conyers stepping down allegedly due to sexual assault allegations. This story was nowhere to be found on Occupy Democrats’ website, Verified Politics. Instead, all stories were extremely left biased attacks against President Trump and the Republican party. Articles had sensational titles where Trump or the GOP did something “and the response was EPIC”, or claimed that the response was a “Holiday lesson for the ages”. All articles were written to make Democrats look good and Republicans look bad. One article’s title was sensational and misleading. “A Trump Fan Just Attacked Chelsea Clinton’s Appearance. She Gave Him A Viral Ass-Kicking” by Brian Tyler Cohen claims to be about a Trump supporter attacking Chelsea Clinton. A Democrat may see this on Facebook and share without reading the article. When reading the article, it is obvious that the title is a blatant lie. The tweet by the Trump supporter is attacking gay Australians and has no mention of Clinton’s appearance. The article then spews in a completely unrelated direction of the GOP tax plan. This “story” was not covered by any credible news outlet. Overall the website is very far left and is barely reputable at all. The news they report is pointless anti-Trump sentiment and not news that matters.
Slate:
While Slate did cover the Conyers story, it placed it rather low on the front page. Story placement matters, especially on a website, so placing such an important story lower than a story about a gif file is sketchy. The featured story on the home page was an opinion piece (though it wasn’t labeled as such) against the GOP tax plan. On their coverage of the Conyers story, it was generally fair and balanced, however, compared to their coverage of Roy Moore, it painted Conyers in a more positive light. For example, a recent article about Roy Moore is titled “Republican Party Dives Back into Alabama Senate Race to Help Elect a Man Who Allegedly Preyed on Teenage Girls”, while the Conyers article isn’t titled “Man who Allegedly Preyed on Female Staffers Steps Down”, it’s “Rep. John Conyers Announces He Will Leave Congress Immediately”. The partisan bias of Slate paints Conyers more positively than Moore, even though both men have been accused of sexual assault, because Conyers is a Democrat, while Moore is a Republican. Slate holds a double standard. Overall Slate is clearly left oriented and sometimes hypocritical/holds a double standard (for example, conflicting/changing views on the Electoral College) but it is more reliable than Occupy Democrats.
Evaluating news sources *part 3/3*
ReplyDeleteDay 2
This is CNN:
CNN’s live TV at the time was covering an issue in Silicon Valley: the oppression of male conservatives in tech companies. Multiple conservatives spoke to CNN anonymously because they feared losing their jobs because their liberal colleagues consider conservative beliefs as offensive or personal affronts. The issue has been discussed extensively on Conservative news outlets, but I did not expect it on CNN. The bubble chart puts CNN in the center, but it is generally considered left wing, so I was surprised at seeing a pro-conservative story on the channel. The story was a preview of a special airing soon on CNN called “Divided we Code”. As for their coverage of Conyers, their online article of the story was on the very front of their webpage, with a featured image, and reported the story in a balanced, non biased way. The story also included all necessary facts and did not have opinionated language. Overall, I was surprised with CNN today. I still consider them left wing, but their coverage of a major conservative issue usually ignored by mainstreamed liberal media surprised me.
The Hill:
The Hill, considered right wing by the bubble chart and left wing by the other chart, had the Conyers story as the number one featured story. It reported it extensively, in detail, and mostly non-biased. The story did mention, unlike other outlets, that there are some who consider the Democrats to be holding a double standard because of their treatment of Conyers as compared to their treatment of Al Franken. The opinion page featured articles from both sides of the aisle and generally had equal political representation. Overall, I believe The Hill is quite unbiased and of high quality.
Infowars:
Infowars (more specifically the Alex Jones Show) did not cover the Conyers story. Jones spent most of the time ranting his opinion and conspiracy theories regarding the Mueller investigation and North Korea. Jones spewed his opinion and eventually got into conspiracy theories about microwaves and such. Jones also spent significant time advertising his all-natural vitality pills and fluoride free toothpaste and other products that only exist because of conspiracy theories. Though Jones did interview Ron Paul, a reputable former congressman, that was about the only respectable thing i was able to find. Occupy Democrats was trash. Infowars is a dumpster fire.
Overall analysis:
The bubble chart is correct in its assessment of Occupy Democrats and Infowars. I would definitely move CNN, higher in quality and a little more to the left. Slate should be moved down in quality and also a little more to the left. The Hill should also be moved to the center
For this post I read through ABC News, NPR, Fox News, The Huffington Post, and Buzzfeed. As I was writing this assignment the “Breaking News” of Trump’s decision to move the Israeli capital from Tel Aviv from Jerusalem was announced. These five news sources all covered this story, but they each covered it in a very different way. According to the charts, ABC News is leaning left/mainstream and high quality news service. I believe that the chart was accurate with this. Overall, they covered all of the facts without really leaning to one side; however, there were portions that it did slightly lean left. The article spent a large portion speaking about the negative effects of this move, rather than just talking about it. NPR was seen as a reliable, neutral news source on both charts. NPR is honestly one of my favorite news sources, other than The New York Times, so over the past few years of me reading NPR I can honestly agree with the chart placement. With this particular article NPR stated the facts of the moving. The reporter stated the negatives and reasonings for moving. By covering both of these sides NPR keeps its spot of covering both sides. In other situations I think they could cover a bit more of the right side, but let’s be honest there's not much good to cover on the right side. Fox News is just Fox News man. Everyone knows that it leans towards the right side and that the quality of the news could improve. I watched a news story of the Trump/Jerusalem story and it was a different side than I saw earlier. In this video they briefly mentioned the negative effects of the move of the US embassy; however, they somehow found enough positive stuff to say about this policy. They took the side of this is what we are doing and why, rather than the side of the possible outcomes of this policy. The Huffington Post was rated as predominantly left and mediocre quality. I agree with this rating to an extent. The Huffington Post definitely leans left; however, the facts they cover, while they may be one sided, are pretty accurate. In this article they heavily covered the political officials that disagreed with the move rather than what the new policy will do. They facts and quotes that they brought to the table were accurate and cited in other sources as well. Their downfall is that they just focused more on the disagreements rather than the policy. Why is BuzzFeed even considered a news source? Like don’t get me wrong they have great quizzes and cool celebrity news, but considering international politics I think they need to take a step back. BuzzFeed covered this story in a way that was so left sided it was a little cringey for even me to read. The first thing that caught my eye was the headline: “Defying Every Major Ally Besides Israel, Trump Recognizes Jerusalem As Its Capital.” Just by reading the headline you know you are in for a left sided roller coaster. As you continue through the article it provides little facts about the policy it just repeatedly says the disagreements and negative things about the policy and Trump. Overall, I think both of these charts were fairly accurate with their location of news sources. I have found to get a full, accurate view of a story you MUST read multiple news sources. Each sources provide such a different views, sides, and information.
ReplyDeletepart two
ReplyDeleteThe second topic that I chose to cover was the decision to ban Russia from the 2018 Winter Olympics. This decision was supposedly made in response to the uncovering that several Russian Olympic athletes had been taking illegal enhancement drugs, aka "doping." I used the same sources: Vox, CNN, ABC News, Fox, and The Blaze.
Over all, I feel like all of the news outlets covered this story in similar ways. It's not a political issue necessarily, so its easier to keep opinions/bais' out of it. They covered it in a very matter-of-fact way.
Vox did a good job of providing background to understand the story better. CNN didn't provide enough background. ABC provided a lot of details just altogether, which made the story 10x better and easier to follow. Vox news included a lot of quotes from outside sources. The Blaze's Title of the article "... Russian athletes must participate under a neutral flag" was a different twist than the others.
Over all, I feel like the chart depicting the more left and right wing news outlets was pretty accurate. I used to always go to CNN for my news, but after this little experiment, I think that I liked ABC News better.
Fox News uses a lot of sensation. There are several titles with associated sensationalized images. Fox News and Breitbart had opinions in their news articles that were supposed to be objective. The left and right spoke a lot of opinions. It was hard to look at the articles. They were similar to some clickbait ads I have seen. Breitbart was extremely difficult to read and look at both aesthetically and content-wise. It was all very pro-trump and very sketchy. There were tabs that said “Big Government” and “Big Journalism” as if the site is a small independent production and not worth $856,000,000.
ReplyDeleteThe Economist, true to name had a major story about investment on its front page. The titles were neutral in opinion. It questioned both Trump and the Supreme Court.
The Left news sources were vastly different from the right. The titles were less inflammatory and clickbaitesque. Still titles need to be eye catching. They spoke about the Trump’s dealing with Israel and moving the embassy to Jerusalem. The neutral news sites didn’t mention that at all. Buzzfeed was less professional because they sandwiched their news between quizzes and awkward celebrity moments. ABC News seemed very professional and had a wide variety of topics from politics to natural disasters.
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ReplyDeleteInfoWars:
ReplyDeleteTo call InfoWars a news source is almost a disgrace. I would open a news story to read it, and everything would be going well for a few sentences. Then the cries of "FAKE NEWS" and Martian interference with the NSA start to appear. In a story about Roy Moore's sexual assault allegations, the profanity-ridden insults against all things that are not affiliated with the GOP made it very hard to listen to. The only slightly redeeming thing I found on this site is the first paragraph of a story about an erroneously reported ABC News story about a subpoena against the President. Everything beyond that paragraph was not news, it was the hyper-opinionated ramblings of a man who has little to no idea how politics actually works. There is so little journalistic merit on this site that it isn't worth anyone's time to read it, much less listen to it.
Addicting Info:
As sorry as InfoWars is, Addicting Info is no better. They are two sides of the same coin. Every story I opened on this site was so scathingly critical of the Republican Party that most of the writers never made it past poking fun at the party to actually report the news. The aforementioned Roy Moore story was also on this site, but it was at least twice as long as the one on InfoWars and its written to lampoon Moore sensationalize the story far more than it needs to be. They did not even run a story on the false ABC reporting because if they had it would have been in conflict with their excessively anti-Trump agenda. What I've been able to surmise from this so far is that if a news source has the word "Info" in its name, it isn't worth the time it takes to read it.
CBS News:
CBS is my go to source for news most of the time, so I may be a bit biased toward it. In the story about the erroneous ABC reporting, there was very little bias and the story was thoroughly covered. However, there was a section on the story that contained a Trump tweet and commentary on it. While both were relevant to the story, the commentary bordered on unnecessary attack of the President that was not relevant to the story. CBS also had several Roy Moore stories, which were largely unbiased. Overall, this is a very reliable news source.
Wall Street Journal:
I've never been a WSJ reader, but I was fairly impressed with their reporting. They lean conservative, but only just. They reported on the developing Roy Moore story in a different way that didn't involve attacking him, instead focusing what the infighting in the GOP is doing to the party. They also ran the story about ABC's reporting error. I do not have a subscription so I couldn't read all of the story, but what I saw was fair. The WSJ seems to report fairly and seems to have a good deal of integrity.
Associated Press:
It's hard to be more neutral than the AP. They're a wire service, so they do have to remain more neutral than most. They ran both stories I've been repeating, but they put no spin on them. They state nothing but they facts and get quotes that are relevant but not opinionated. The side effect of this is they don't offer as much analysis, which isn't necessarily a bad thing as it leaves forces readers to formulate their own opinions.
Overall:
I definitely feel like the charts are pretty accurate, but they both don't have InfoWars and Addicting Info low enough in the poor quality range.
The sources I chose were BuzzFeed, MSNBC, USA Today, Forbes, and FOX NEWS. With every different news source you look at, not everyone is going to have the same view on things, or might think somethings are more important than others. Over the course of time looking at different news outlets and stories, each outlet seemed to cover generally the same things. However, there are some exceptions with this depending on the outlook the news outlets have. A lot of this is based on political views, leaning left or right depending if they are conservative or liberal organizations.
ReplyDeleteDuring the first day, I noticed that a few sources really focussed on more of the entertainment side, like BuzzFeed. Probably to up their viewings by giving this other side to the media, but they did have some news that seemed to matter. They all pretty much cover the same issues going on, but you can defiantly tell they focus on things based on their political views. For example, Trump is a hot topic in todays news and media, but if FOX NEWS doesn't agree with some of the other things that have been said, they won't run things they don't agree with, or they try to make him look better that he does himself, which is difficult.
During the second day, I looked more in depth than just the cover stories, I liked that there was so much international coverage. Those type of things interest me, and after hearing so much about Trump and things involving him, it is nice to see that there are other things going on in the world and not everyone is focussed on what Trump is doing in America. I personally like entertainment stories, because I don't have a very big attention span, so something has to be super interesting for me to take the time to read it all the way through.
All the news outlets I looked at did a good job of portraying whats important, and yes, you can tell sometimes the way a news outlet leans, but I don't think that is how you should base where you get your news from. People should look at multiple sources to truly understand the different points of whats happening in the world. With this being said, I think the chart with he columns is the most accurate. I think all the source I accessed fall into the right place on this chart.
ReplyDeleteFor the first day I chose the media’s coverage of Michael Flynn Pleading Guilty. I chose CNN, ABC, Blaze, USA Today, and Fox as my sources. I noticed the right side leading to talking more about Trump than the left side although it was over all of the news sources. USA Today has a lot of different topics other than this specific one and I really enjoy reading them. It gives a break from all the political news and turns more towards entertainment, which I also think can be good for younger people wanting to get involved with the news. It kept it pretty neutral without biased headlines. As I kept looking the stories turn slightly negative on CNN and ABC’s stories, which was expected. CNN’s coverage on this issue was very informative and in my opinion had the perfect amount of information without getting to wordy. I went back and looked at ABC’s coverage again and it said they made a mistake in the report, but they fixed it. Fox leaned to the right with coverage on many tragedies and Trump. Blaze didn’t provide enough information at all, but did still talk about Flynn pleading guilty.
The next topic that I chose was Russia's Ban from the Winter Olympics because of illegal enhancement drugs. I used the same news sources for this topic as well. I noticed the California fires being a big talking point in a lot of the news sources. All of the news sources covered this topic well without much bias. CNN’s and ABC’s coverage was the most in depth and provided the most information about this topic. CNN focused on the fact that clean athletes can compete and only some were being banned. USA Today provided information about the issue, but not much to enhance the importance of the subject. Fox didn’t provide that much information either and when they did it was repetitive of what I already read. Blaze provided more information than in the last topic, but I didn’t get any new information from them than any of the other sources.
News coverage definitely varies depending on which outlet you are looking at. This makes a difference because view it differently based on conservative or liberal viewpoints or even overlook certain issues because they do not see it as important. In all of the topics and news sources I looked at I feel like all were somewhat biased except USA Today was pretty neutral. I feel like the chart was pretty accurate and gave me a good idea of what to expect. I overall enjoyed this assignment to help me broaden my knowledge of news from different sources because that's how we should get our information rather than always relying on our go-to source.
For this assignment I looked at The Skimm, Politico,CNN, Fox News and BBC. The News story that I wanted to cover was the GOP Tax Bill. Each of the news sources covered the story but each once covered it slightly different. The Skimm is my goto news source and it does a really good job of remaining natural on the topics that they cover. I think that this is because their articles are suppose to be quick reads and often lack opinion.BBC and CNN were both left wing on the topic but they offered a lot more in depth information than the Skimm and the other news sources on my list. Next was Politico which was natural but I believe that they are a bit more right wing than I would like but the offer some really amazing facts that weren't offered on other news. It also did a really good job of going in depth and giving me more information.I believe the less impressive of the five was Fox News. Fox News was extremely right wing. It become hard to read because of it . Each one of the articles they had available covering the bill they seemed to have either personal opinion or influence from an outside source. Even on the video you can tell that the reporter was very bias when taking about the issue. On day two things got really interesting when decided to look at net neutrality. Net neutrality being the hot topic that it is right now I thought that this would be a goof topic to cover. Surprisingly Fox News and Polictio were neutral about the issue. Both sources just stuck with the facts and didn't go super in depth with the articles. The Skim, CNN and BBC were all more left wing when covering the story. They went extremely in depth with the stories and told more than just the facts. The Skimm even went as far as providing a link for those who wanted to speak out about it. They showed me different ways t get my voice heard. I think if I had to stick with one news source it would either be The Skimm or CCN just because they are sources that are often neutral and when they aren't, I share the same views as them.
ReplyDeleteDay 1 (December 4, 2017): As I went in depth of each of the sources, I noticed that when comparing the sides ranging from liberal to mainstream to conservative, there were many key characteristics. I noticed that when reading and viewing the news from that of the liberal side, there were less news stories involving that of Trump or the government, but more entertainment and newer articles about events with social media and different tech companies. As I began picking and reading through the mainstream, I was met with a variety of stories ranging from both liberal to conservative. There were stories that either supported or were against one of the sides, which was interesting to me. The wide array of stories ranged from entertainment news and sexual assault to that of Trump and his situation with Jerusalem and so on and so forth. When I brought myself to read and go in depth with the more conservative side, the stories showed more of a government based way of news. They kept their focus mainly on what was happening within politics, rather than anything else, such as the winter olympics and sexual assault case.
ReplyDeleteDay 2 (December 5, 2017): For today I decided to start on the conservative side of the news sources (RedState and Fox News). Just like the other day I was met with everything having to do with the social and political changes within the country and beyond. The main story that I looked at dealt with Trump and his situation with Jerusalem, which did show a side that supported the decision he was in the process of making. Going to the mainstream news sources (NPR and The New York Times), again there were a wide-array of sources. One thing I didn’t notice however was anything about any recent allegations against Rep. John Conyers. In a way, I felt that they attempted to leave out news articles that could potentially support both or neither sides (conservative or liberal). FInally I went back to my liberal side of news sources (BuzzFeed and MSNBC) and decided to look more closely to see if BuzzFeed could make any progress in actually informing me about what was happening, but again I was greeted with useless and basically unnecessary blog posts that didn’t help me learn anything about the news at all. An interesting I noticed was that BuzzFeed had different sections. The main page featured its popular stories that were more entertaining than serious and then a few buttons near the top, on of which being BuzzFeed news. Even after clicking this I wasn’t very entranced or interested in anything that BuzzFeed wrote about, not only due to the fact that a lot of it didn’t make sense, but that a lot of it included unnecessary and extra information that I didn’t feel like reading through.
For this assignment, I chose to make observations of two day’s coverage across media outlets such as MSNBC, CNN, USA Today, Fox News, and Drudge Report.
ReplyDeleteFor my first day, looking over these news sources, from what I could tell, all covered the same news, examples being the case of Michael Flynn, and the GOP Tax Bill. However, the main noticeable differences were the titles. However, where more conservative sources such as Fox News and Drudge Report portrayed Trump as a great leader and/or a hero, and condemned regions such as Islam, sources such as USA Today seemed pretty objective in their news delivery. Sources leaning to the left such as CNN and MSNBC seemingly spoke more ill of Trump and the Republican party, but remained accurate. It seemed like the sources leaning towards the Republican side didn’t talk much about Michael Flynn or the investigation centering around Trump. I think it’s because of a bias towards the conservative side, and they’re trying to avoid spreading negative ideas about Trump.
For my second day, the stories seemed to be covering the same news for the most part. However, some differences were that leftist leaners such as CNN and MSNBC were focused more on the investigation of Trump and the sexual allegations going around the country, and the news sources leaning towards the right were definitely more focused on other things. Many of them didn’t really mention anything about the sexual allegations or the investigation.
I can definitely tell which media sources are more neutral and which have more bias. I believe CNN, and MSNBC are more liberal, where Fox News and Drudge Report are more far right. I believe USA Today seemed pretty objective, from what I noticed during these two days. I can tell these sources’ standpoints by reading their slightly biased (Or in USA Today’s case, unbiased) headlines.
In conclusion, I do think the chart is fairly accurate, but where they say CNN has minimal partisan bias, I would change that to “Skews Liberal (But still reputable)” because while it does clearly have more of a leftist bias, it still was a very reliable source. Also, I think Fox News should have less reputability than it is given in the chart.
Media Outlets: ABC, USA Today, The Blaze, Fox, The Hill
ReplyDeleteAfter following the coverage of a couple day’s news across these outlets, I realized how all of them were biased at some point except for USA Today. I found it was always a great news source when it came to the other media outlets covering the same story. There were never any added qualities like The Blaze likes to do. The Blaze coverages never had any new information in their stories that was different than the other media outlet stories. Most of their articles are only targeting readers instead of practicing true journalism. ABC was, for the most part, unbiased in their stories. Sometimes, they would lean a little left. The only thing I didn’t like about the way they covered stories was all the negativity they included. When I began observing The Hill, I was surprised to find they were hardly bias at all like the charts portray them to be. Their coverage was high quality news material and I think the chart did a poor job displaying its views. When I red Fox News stories I found that they tent to include a lot of opinion in their writing. When I read some of the top stories, I couldn’t help but think of USA Today and they way they cover their stories is similar. But, I think Fox News is more biased in their stories. Overall, I think the chart showing left or right the media outlets are is the most accurate. The only thing I would change is the location of The Blaze. I think it belongs at the very bottom next to Infowars.
I chose Buzzfeed, The Blaze, The Hill and USA Today
ReplyDeleteFor the most part a lot of the news outlets covered a lot of the same material.
Buzzfeed and The Blaze covered more celebrity topics than The Hill and USA Today. The hill covers only political news. The Blaze has a targeted audience of millennials. They claim to have "the news that matters" but that included political and and celebrity. USA today was very good at being unbiased with their reporting. The Hill covers political news and that is that. They had no leaning one way or another. The Hill covers all parties and their thoughts objectively. Buzzfeed covered a lot of celebrity but also some local news that everyone needs to know about.
I think the diagram without the circles was the most accurate to work with.
For this assignment I chose to view- Buzzfeed, CNN, USA Today, Fox News, and The Blaze. I checked all of these news outlets on Friday, December 1st and saw most were discussing former Trump advisor, Michael Flynn and whether or not he was going to plead guilty to accusations of lying and keeping information. As I went from site to site, I noticed USA Today and The Blaze were the only ones who didn’t have this story as their headline. USA Today was discussing Matt Lauer and his accusations of sexual misconduct with an in depth article on “Why Do Men Expose Themselves? It’s About Power.” The Blaze first story was a news report on a NY Giants player discussing why he’s still choosing to kneel. I went to search “Flynn” on the site to see if the story would pop up and the articles that were showing were all formed about others getting exposed about lying about Mike Flynn or Trump responding to the case, “and his comments couldn’t be more clear..”
ReplyDeleteOn the second day BuzzFeed news first two articles were focused on Trump, one was him, “Upsetting The Status Quo” with Israel and another quoting the editor-in-chief of Time magazine discrediting Trump’s comment that he “took a pass” on being named Person of the Year. On CNN the headline was “Why Trump’s Jerusalem move is so controversial” with the article listing every con there is to the move which shows complete unfavor of the president’s decision. USA Today’s headline was “Raging wildfire threatens several of Los Angeles’ ritziest neighborhoods.” Trumps Jerusalem decision was the fourth top story on the side of the website and in the article was mostly quotes from political leaders in Jerusalem stating facts of what would happen to their city if the capital was to be moved there. No opinions were stated and a clear concept of the story was presented to the reader. On Fox News page showed a picture of Hillary Clinton and Robert Mueller with the headline “They ‘Hate The President’” with “allegations of anti-Trump bias inside Robert Mueller’s team are reviving Republican claims of inconsistency at the Justice Department…” Once mentioning the subject of Jerusalem and Trump the story is a of a terror group planning a ‘day of rage’ in response to his decision. The purpose of this article is trying to throw any negative attention on someone else to make one not think of Trump in a negative manner. The Blaze featured Beyoncé as the headline presented the Muhammad Ali award to a football player. Trump’s decision with Jerusalem and Israel wasn’t featured until the fifth top story and states what Trump has decided to announce about it, no negatives or what the effects would be on the city if this was to be made. Reflecting on all media sites I can conclude Buzzfeed and CNN are left side media, USA Today is neutral, and Fox News and TheBlaze are right sided.
On December 3rd and 4th I looked at news from CNN, Fox, ABC, USA Today, and Buzzfeed. A lot of the news that I looked at was news about Trump's support of Roy Moore. I think the news first broke while we were in class on Monday. CNN had an article that discussed a conversation that Trump had with Moore and CNN reported that the president ended the call with "Go Get em Roy". Although CNN is normally a left source, i felt like they were farily unbiased when it came to this particular story. Fox News also covered the Roy Moore story and Trump's endorsement. Fox went a bit of a different way, instead of explaining the situation there articles discussed the reasons why the president was endorsing Moore. They also quoted Sarah Sanders saying that "one allegation should not desgtroy someone's life". ABC news covered the event similar to CNN, however they also discussed the position of Senate majority leader Mitch Mcconnel and what his position on the endorsement was. USA Today was my favorite coverage during this assignment. They covered the with the most detail. They talked about Trump's endorsement, but they also went on to talk about why he endorsed Moore and also gave multiple links to more information such as links to tweets from Trump about this. They went just a little bit further in their overall coverage. Buzz Feed on the other hand, was by far the most biased on the event. Their article title read "Trump just endorsed a canidate accused of child molestation". This was by far the most opinionated site as well. The whole article basically just talks about Trump's phone call with Roy Moore and the article intends to make the President look like a bad guy. In terms of the charts that we were given, personally I like the one that goes more in depth with its evaluation of the way the media sites lean. The chart goes all the way to "garbage" sites on each side. Based on what i reseached and have known in the past the information and where the media outlets are it seems to be very accurate as well.
ReplyDeleteOn December 3rd and 4th I looked at news from CNN, Fox, ABC, USA Today, and Buzzfeed. A lot of the news that I looked at was news about Trump's support of Roy Moore. I think the news first broke while we were in class on Monday. CNN had an article that discussed a conversation that Trump had with Moore and CNN reported that the president ended the call with "Go Get em Roy". Although CNN is normally a left source, i felt like they were farily unbiased when it came to this particular story. Fox News also covered the Roy Moore story and Trump's endorsement. Fox went a bit of a different way, instead of explaining the situation there articles discussed the reasons why the president was endorsing Moore. They also quoted Sarah Sanders saying that "one allegation should not desgtroy someone's life". ABC news covered the event similar to CNN, however they also discussed the position of Senate majority leader Mitch Mcconnel and what his position on the endorsement was. USA Today was my favorite coverage during this assignment. They covered the with the most detail. They talked about Trump's endorsement, but they also went on to talk about why he endorsed Moore and also gave multiple links to more information such as links to tweets from Trump about this. They went just a little bit further in their overall coverage. Buzz Feed on the other hand, was by far the most biased on the event. Their article title read "Trump just endorsed a canidate accused of child molestation". This was by far the most opinionated site as well. The whole article basically just talks about Trump's phone call with Roy Moore and the article intends to make the President look like a bad guy. In terms of the charts that we were given, personally I like the one that goes more in depth with its evaluation of the way the media sites lean. The chart goes all the way to "garbage" sites on each side. Based on what i reseached and have known in the past the information and where the media outlets are it seems to be very accurate as well.
DeleteSo the news sources I used were msnbc, npr, c-span, fox, and info wars.
ReplyDeleteThey definitely presented different views on a lot of the same topics and issues.
Msnbc brought in lots of people from news sources that fell in the same category on the political spectrum, and some that were even more liberal than msnbc. they praised the russia investigation. NPR mentioned the investigation and gave the facts on the case. fox and info wars both called the investigation a witch hunt and talked about how the fbi was full of liberals and paid close attention to the weissman scandal, which the other sources seemed to overlook. info wars took it to a crazy place and developed convoluted conspiracy theories to fit their preconsisting biases, which honestly worried me, made me sad, and angered me a bit. C-span was very very unbiased. Most of it was footage straight from washington of politicians giving presentations, but they also brought in experts from both sides who took part in a very civil discussion on the issues. this was refreshing after seeing the way that fox brought in guests solely for the purpose of attacking them. The experts on c-span discussed an issue concerning a baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. It was the only source that i felt let me make my own decision on the issue. Fox used language that was in support of the baker, while msnbc used language that was in support of the couple. Fox for the most part ignored talking about michael flynn or roy moore. Npr mentioned the alabama race and they had guests from both sides: republicans who were against moore, and black democrats who felt that the democrats were taking their votes for granted. all in all I think the chart was pretty accurate.
Day 1: 12/01/17 – The Atlantic, The Washington Post, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, and The Hill
ReplyDeleteAccording to the chart, the news outlet that skewed conservative was The Atlantic. It remained fairly neutral in its main coverage of the day regarding Michael Flynn’s guilty plea. It was very detailed and fact-oriented. One could argue that The Atlantic did a good job of sticking to the story and providing the reader with truth. Its stories were long and obviously well thought out. The Washington Post also covered the Flynn controversy with multiple, in-depth articles that were neural and complex. However, there was an editorial titled, “The Populist Mask is Slipping for Trump and the GOP” that leaned a little to the left. CNN’s trending stories covered Net Neutrality, something I did not see on any other news outlet, Michael Flynn, and Trump’s confidence in his travel ban being reinstated. The Wall Street Journal mostly covered Senate’s tax bill with multiple stories. According to the chart, CNN was declared basic and sensational. However, it seemed to be a credible and more complex new outlet than portrayed by some. The Wall Street Journal remained loyal to its stereotype of being mainstream/skewed conservative. The Hill covered stories on the NFL kneeling controversy and the GOP tax bill, not including stories similar to the other news outlets analyzed this day.
Day 2: 12/05/17 – Buzzfeed, The New York Times, Associated Press, Fox News, and Infowars
According to the chart, the news sources that leaned to the left were Buzzfeed and The New York Times. They had similar coverage in that they both had the Olympic ban on Russia and the Roy Moore situation as their head stories. They included detailed stories, but Buzzfeed’s were not as in depth as the NYTimes. Out of the two, The New York Times seems to be more credible. Specifically, it was very long and included more up-to-date quotes and information. Both seemed to follow their stereotype of leaning left, however, the NYTimes focused more on political issues whereas Buzzfeed included stories covering social issues: the #MeToo movement, “The Women Behind Nike’s First Sports Hijab,” and the discussion around a baker refusing to sell a cake to a gay couple. Other news sources such as the Associated Press and Fox News prioritized stories regarding Trump’s decision to make Jerusalem a capitol in the Mideast. The AP remained fairly neutral. Meanwhile, Fox News leans to the right in its coverage of Roy Moore and in including a story on the front page of its website titled, “Clinton Ignored Harvey Warning?” referring to the Harvey Weinstein situation and doing its best to create a bad connotation around the Clinton name. While its coverage of facts was neutral, its quotes and sources tended to lean to the right. It mentioned Republican opinions more often than not. Lastly, Infowars excluded any information or stories regarding Roy Moore. While this seemed to be the most important story on other news outlets, Infowars remained consistent in disregarding it. The trending story on their website was about Meryl Streep allegedly supporting a child rapist. It seemed to be an extremely subjective news outlet that was led by one opinion that very much skewed to the right.
I would say that the charts are fairly accurate. Almost every news outlet I analyzed seemed to fit its stereotype of where it leaned politically and how complex it was in its writing and coverage of stories. The only thing I noticed was that Buzzfeed was actually pretty good in its coverage although considered to be of poor quality in the charts. Also, CNN was deemed mainstream and basic, whereas I would argue the opposite. I really like these charts, however, and would argue that they are a good resource for someone looking to acquire a wide spectrum of information.