Blog #10

Unfortunately, the content published by news outlets are written with bias whether the authors mean to or not. As the general public becomes better educated, we are realizing a lot of the information we absorb and use is tainted with bias and has to be taken lightly. Now more than ever we need to be smart enough to be able to read both sides of a story before coming to a judgement.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/27/trump-signs-executive-order-for-extreme-vetting-refugees.html The first news station I will talk about is Fox News. They are publicly known to be conservative and to support conservative candidates. I read a story that covers Trump’s proposal for extreme vetting of immigrants. It is clear that the story was written with the intent to seem favorable towards the President. They lay out Trump’s points and back them up with facts to make them seem more legit. I can see that when backing up Trump’s immigration claims, Fox tends to use strictly conservative sources to back up claims, instead of using a diverse set of sources that are both conservative and liberal in nature. The fact that they do this makes their bias clear. The type of media outlets that are covering Trump the most are business and political ones. Being President makes Trump a person who can easily influence the business and political environments of this country, so with that being said those media outlets will cover him closely.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/28/politics/donald-trump-executive-order-immigration-reaction/ The second news outlet that covered the same topic is CNN. CNN is known as a news outlet that holds liberal values and supports liberal candidates. It was very easy to distinguish the angle CNN wanted the viewers to have when reading the article. They published this article in a way that makes the President seem erratic. They try to fact-check and contradict his claims through the use of liberal sources. The problem with this is that the liberal sources used will try to find anything they can to make the President look bad. CNN published the article with the intent to persuade the public in disagreeing with Trump. One way they inserted bias into this story is through the use of quotes. They were able to find quotes made by the judge who ruled against the ban and through specific institutions that disparaged Trump. By doing this, they are sub-consciously changing the readers view on the issue. They also make Trump seem less credible.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/59d19eed7083468a93e90c7b8d22cce0/ap-source-trumps-revised-travel-ban-targets-same-countries The third news outlet that covered the same issue was the Associated Press. The Associated Press is one of the few news outlets that have little bias or are really good at hiding their bias. What they did differently than CNN or Fox, was that they used both conservative and liberal sources and viewpoints. They would give the facts on the issue and back up those facts through different viewpoints. By doing this they are able to give the reader an un-biased story that is not trying to push any kind of political agenda on them, but give them a simple detailed story that makes them think. It helps the reader form their own opinion.

From what I can tell, the candidate and his supporters are the ones that generate the news. The candidate’s supporters can implement stories that make their party look good, while discrediting the opponent, which helps persuade potential voters. Trump’s campaign team will try anything to generate positive news coverage. It is common for campaign teams to send in “insider information” to new stations, so they can try to dictate what is written about them. If I was an advisor to my candidate I would try to push stories about bringing jobs back to America. That is Trumps strongest suit and I believe he can actually create some positive change in this sector.

Sources: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/27/trump-signs-executive-order-for-extreme-vetting-refugees.html , http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/28/politics/donald-trump-executive-order-immigration-reaction/ , http://bigstory.ap.org/article/59d19eed7083468a93e90c7b8d22cce0/ap-source-trumps-revised-travel-ban-targets-same-countries , https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Donald_Trump_official_portrait.jpg , https://media3.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2016_20/1541946/160518-trump-portrait-jsw-145p_1c226e6636be4572928409c157f0d50a.nbcnews-ux-2880-1000.jpg