Modern news media has such an overwhelming number of outlets that viewers often choose programming that fits their tastes and ideological preferences, reinforcing preexisting political beliefs. Partisan media hosts make partisan leanings clearly evident, and reinforce partisan bias that overwhelms modern news coverage. This in turn affects the nature of news itself, in that, people get only a very narrow understanding and perception of the news when they seek only "one side" of any given story. Media bias is evident in many news outlets by simply analyzing key factors of word choice in content and visual framing choices.
Senator Rand Paul, a republican of Kentucky, held a 13 hour filibuster arguing future presidential drone authority, in turn delaying a final vote confirming John Brennan as CIA director on Wed. March 6. MSNBC, a liberal leaning news outlet, titled their article on the event: “McCain, Graham assail Rand Paul on targeted killings policy.” Right away the title shows the power of word choice for journalists. MSNBC uses the word “assail” to explain the friction between these republican senators and the words “targeted killings policy” to explain the drone policy. These words hold more negative connotations over the positive language focused on a “successful” or “victorious” filibuster on behalf of conservatives. This in itself proves the intended tone. MSNBC seems to want to frame an association among republicans and targeted killings, an associated undoubtedly negative and purposefully controversial and divisive.
MSNBC includes quotes from Senator Paul about bazookas and rocket launchers – a framing to portray the GOP as silly and extreme, no doubt. Though conservatives, liberals, and independents alike seem to hold issue with Senator Paul’s statements, the quotes included by MSNBC gave a sense that the Republicans were a party divided by conflict and confusion, by including quotes of the GOP directly attacking their own:
“‘I find the question offensive,’Graham said Thursday on the Senate floor. ‘As much as I disagree with President Obama and as much as I support past presidents, I do not believe that questions deserves an answer. Paul’s question cheapens the debate.’”
They also included this quote from Texas senator Ted Cruz to reinforce this idea:
“After repeated questioning from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Holder finally said it would also not be constitutional. Holder said, ‘I thought I was saying ‘no.’ ‘All right, no.’”
The words MSNBC chose focused on the quarreling of the Senators rather than the policy, also including a quote of Graham scolding Senator Paul:
“a lot of my colleagues are well-meaning but there is only one commander-in-chief in our Constitution,” said Graham.
MSNBC also visually portrayed division among the GOP by choosing pictures of senators McCain and Graham quarreling amongst themselves about Paul.
Photo Courtesy of MSNBC News
In this structure and content format, liberal party identity was strengthened by emphasizing this conflict among the GOP. Though the intention may have been to remain as neutral as possible, MSNBC clearly made choices in news content, images, and word choice that proclaimed liberal leanings and intentions. These factors can be analyzed in any news story in order to weigh and spotlight media bias.
Sources:
FoxNews.com. "Sen. Paul declares 'victory’ after Holder offers assurance on drones." Fox News, sec. U.S. Senate, March 7, 2013. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/07/historic-filibuster-renews-bipartisan-focus-on-drones-regulation/ (accessed March 7, 2013).
Curry, Tom. "McCain, Graham assail Rand Paul on targeted killings policy." NBC Politics, sec. National Affairs, March 7, 2013. 17225441-mccain-graham-assail-rand-paul-on-targeted-killings-policy (accessed March 7, 2013).
The great differences between the two articles are very interesting, but also not a surprise. I really enjoyed your analysis of the differences and it connected very well to class because of our upcoming Varying Coverage Project. There's only two minor things I think you could do to improve an already well-written and interesting post. One, the beginning is very telling, meaning you tell rather than show your readers what you're going to be writing about. I guess this is just a minor style thing, but I think it could be beneficial to change it just to catch the readers eye more effectively. Two, I'd like to see a little more opinion near the end --- Do you think it is necessary for both sides to be reported like this or do you think it should be changed? Overal, a really enjoyable post! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteA really good post Aubrey! You do very well to compare the coverage and make some interesting points. I think you would benefit from also asking what the effects of this style of media coverage can be..you do a lot of very good comparison work but to fully link this back to class discussion, explaining the implications of this bias would make this even better!
ReplyDeleteYou do a kind of version of the varying coverage project here, but the main issue is that these articles from Fox News and MSNBC are not on the same topic, and they are also not the main news accounts of Paul’s filibuster. The Fox News article on Holder’s response is very likely to have a more favorable cast because of its main topic – if Paul forced the White House to respond, this makes his actions that much more significant. By contrast, the MSNBC article is focused on the issue of how not all Republicans backed Paul in his actions, and to be fair, this IS actually mentioned in the Fox News article too, as they note some of the responses of McCain and Graham. So I think the main issue here is that the difference in article subject matter makes this a problematic comparison, and some of the evidence from the articles doesn’t really lend itself to supporting your argument, though I appreciate your efforts to present quotes and specifics to back your claims. Good discussion of media bias issues at the beginning of the post.
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