(Photo taken from NPR article, link below. Who knew such a thing existed?)
Of all the stories I’ve seen over the past week, none have been as prevalent or annoying as the whole debt ceiling debacle. Recently, it was announced that the house and senate, controlled by Republicans and Democrats respectively, broke off negotiations and came up with their own plans. The media coverage for this whole debate and this turn of events has just been the usual political circus as I call it. In other words, it’s just the usual chaos of the rhetoric and on and off negotiations of the politicians until a last second deal that doesn’t really do much. It illustrates Hanson’s 4th media truth that nothings new and the past repeats. This coverage was highly reminiscent of the political circus that surrounded the budget and possible shutdown a few months ago.
USA Today, despite being a national paper, only offered a very brief article which outlined the basic plans that House speaker Boehner and Senate majority leader Harry Reid came up with and included statements from White House spokesperson Carney and speaker Boehner. The briefness of the article and coverage of both plans and speakers on both ends indicates that USA Today took no side on the issue. It’s also evident given that it barely even addresses the debt ceiling debate at large. It showed the objective style of the penny press to maximize readers but differed in that it covered political issues.
The New York Times’ coverage was much more comprehensive as it addressed other issues and considerations surrounding the plan like the introduction of a new bipartisan committee that could deal with budgeting and bypass traditional blocks like filibusters, and some additional details of both plans like their reach in terms of time and extra provisions. To my surprise, it also followed an objective and fact-based style despite being a metropolitan paper primarily for a place as liberal as New York City. Nonetheless, it provides liberal content for its primary city in its opinion pieces on the debt limit debate which eliminate the need to deviate from a fact-based style on stories like this.
BBC’s coverage went beyond just the debt ceiling plans themselves. They even included the effects the whole charade was having on markets around the world and it also included comment and suggestions from international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund for things like entitlement reform and revenue increases. Although it did show some leaning by giving the senate plan a bit more coverage and quoting it more often, they did give sufficient coverage of how things were playing out with the 2 parties and also showed the house plan. It was definitely the most comprehensive article on the main three sources and didn’t go far enough in any respect to take a side. It displayed a bit more analysis than the other two sources with the section on global markets; however, like the previous two sources, it did not show any sense of activism.
One alternative outlet I chose to look at was Fox News because of their clear conservative bias and frequent favoritism of Republicans. I wanted to see if they could present an issue like this without playing favorites. To my honest surprise, the article didn’t really contain any clear evidence of reading and actually gave details on the plans of both parties and what the leaders hoped to do. It also quoted rhetoric of both parties. It might be because their information came from Associated Press and could have been based solely on that. Nonetheless, I was surprised that Fox News was able to simply report some facts on the debt ceiling plans and not take the site that better suites their business agenda. However, I assume they will do so in opinion pieces like the New York Times does and also possibly in other articles on the subject.
Another alternative outlet I looked at was the Nation Public Radio website because I wanted to see how a publicly owned outlet like them would report this as opposed to more common private outlets. It was by far the most comprehensive coverage I’ve ever seen on the turn of events to separate plans in this whole debate. It frequently updated its coverage to give a good amount of detail and rhetoric from both parties plans. It also gave background information to how the debate got to this point such as Boehner walking out of negotiations and the schism in the Republican Party between the leaders and tea partiers. It was also comprehensive in the fact that it covered information from many other sources as well, such as the New York Times.
The Web has proved to be the most reliable source of information thanks to the availability of various different sources of information, ranging from big media to the long tail of the news industry like local papers or websites.
Websites used linked below
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn elaboration to your blog, I believe we can confirm two more truths. While most of us will agree that such political matters eventually become just another annoying juggling stunt, it is inevitable to become immersed in them due to the many sources that cover them. Hence, the media are an important aspect of our lives, as suggested by Hanson's first truth. I don't always intentionally look for the latest updates on political-related matters, but I cannot help coming across them in one form or another -- it is almost like a shotgun hold-up! This leads to a confirmation of Hanson's second truth, which suggests that there is no clear-cut definition of who constitutes mainstream media. You stated that the most comprehensive coverage on the debt crisis was given by an alternative source -- go figure! I feel that most alternative media are less prone to bias and, many times, are more reliable news sources -- particularly when politics are involved.
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/LyjnEm8DZkI
I find it interesting how the articles you used highlight the point we've been addressing in class over media ownership. It honestly isn't a surprise that NPR would have the most neutral point of view because they don't have other companies trying to work there agenda behind them. Moving though your list I'm also not shocked about the way the BBC acted either. Being an outside organization naturally allows for them to be the people that report things from the outside looking in. This removes most of the bias from there righting since they don't really favor one plan to another. I find it interesting that you brought up the brevity of USA Today report since I remember the text book calling what they wright "News McNuggets." The Fox article you read serves as a nice contrast to mine and I'm at least happy they had a more "just the facts" type article. Since I've commented on the others, might as well comment on the Times. As the "paper of record" I'm not shocked that they would go more in depths for their report and seeing them offer both fact based reports and opinion pieces is also nice.
ReplyDelete