Ralph E. Hanson’s seven truths states that everything that has happened in the past will happen again. Every media outlet provides different types of information about the same story. For instance, a current political sex scandal involving David Wu, congressman of Oregon, and a daughter of a longtime Wu supporter, shows the occurrence of the media repeating itself. Also, most media outlets had written something slightly different about this case.
A daughter of a Wu supporter has accused David Wu of unwanted sexual behavior. Due to this current issue, and previous misconduct issues Wu had, Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has called for an ethics investigation of Wu’s conduct. Some of David Wu’s previous misdemeanors involved him acting erratically and sending emails of himself dressed in a tiger suit. Wu blamed his erratic behavior on a difficult divorce and medication. However, Wu has decided that he will not run for reelection, but will not resign from office.
David Wu’s current scandal is quit similar to that of congressman Anthony Weiner’s scandal, which forced him out of office. In Weiner’s case, he was caught sending lewd pictures of himself to other woman. Then there was congressman Chris Lee who sent shirtless pictures of him to a woman on craigslist. The list of political sex scandals just goes on. Just as Hanson says, there is nothing new on the media. In a sense he is right, because once something has happened and has been reported on by the media, its bound to happen again. Just like how history repeats itself, the media also repeats itself.
Every media that has reported on this article all had the same story, but reported it in different details. New York Times gave a brief explanation of what has happened and followed up with Wu’s previous misbehaviors and closed with his decision to not run for reelection. USA Today had pretty much the same details but included some comments from Pelosi and made a connection to Anthony Weiner. Wall Street Journal had the same details from both the New York Times and USA Today, however it also provided data on what is the current status of democrats and republicans and background information on Wu. Fox News also provided details about what happened, but they also provided a lot of commentary from other representatives in office about Wu’s ethics investigation.
Media is just like history, constantly repeating itself. Just as David Wu’s scandal demonstrated the repetition of political sex scandals in the news of United States politics. However, different media owners have a tendency to report these stories differently. By examining articles about Wu’s ethics investigation, from the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Fox News it shows how they reported differently about this particular scandal. Fox News used a lot of comments from other house representatives, while the other three consisted of mainly details.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/pelosi-seeks-ethics-investigation-of-wus-conduct/?ref=politics
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/25/pelosi-calls-for-ethics-probe-into-wu-sex-report-1334174360/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903591104576466393101184286.html
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/07/david-wu-sex-scandal-resign-congress-/1
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