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What Are Media Bias

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Media Bias

Citizens of the United States vary vastly. The exposure to media, however, is one common thread that connects the majority of the population. We trust popular news outlets to portray information we need or want to know, but do these stations always deliver it the same? CNN and Fox are two dominant forces in today's media driven society, but these two juggernauts often differ in coverage on many current prominent issues.

"...Protestors fired more than 100 gunshots and burned and looted as many as 25 buildings and vandalized police cars in Ferguson, MO...." (Gunshots) This is how Fox News reported the aftermath of the verdict to not indict Officer Wilson for the shooting of Michael Brown. Although I do not plan to debate the …show more content…

Fox reported Trump's victory with, "Donald Trump, defying the pundits and polls to the end, defeated Hillary Clinton in Tuesday’s presidential election and claimed an establishment-stunning victory..." (Trump) The wording of this strongly suggests Fox's support for Trump's victory and portrays Trump more as a likeable underdog. It shows how he shocked the nation, but it has a delighted air about it that reinforces the positive connotation of the message. CNN's report varied greatly stating, "It was an earthquake. But Americans chose. After a gut-wrenching campaign, dominated by questions about character and temperament, Donald Trump will be America's 45th president." (Sesno) To the contrary of Fox's article, CNN highlights the questions and negative aspects of Donald Trump's campaign. The wording is that of a tragedy instead of an excited victory. They strongly imply that they do not entirely support the …show more content…

We saw all of these from the Obama administration this week as it desperately tried to defend its foolhardy plan to bring Syrian refugees into the United States without adequately vetting them for ISIS terrorists."(Fleitz) This was included in one article posted by Fox concerning the introduction of Syrian refugees into the United States. Although there were slightly more positive articles, the fact that it was even published by Fox shows the station's extreme bias towards the situation. It uses negative language throughout to stress this and even directly criticizes Obama and the decision. CNN took a more neutral stance with, "President Obama has ordered his administration to "scale up" the number of Syrian refugees admitted to the United States in the coming year, directing his team to prepare for at least 10,000 in the next fiscal year, the White House said Thursday"(Koran) I was honestly extremely surprised by this article as well. Compared to Fox's example, one could say CNN's was leaning liberal, but overall they seemed to report this occurrence objectively. I did not detect any loaded language, but the lack of usual bias may actually suggest they do not support the decision

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