Friday, October 26, 2012

BIAS EVIDENT IN MEDIA


Emails to government officials saying a terrorist group had claimed responsibility were written about by two news agencies, but with very different perspectives.
            Fox and NBC both reported on the emails, which said that a group named Ansar Al-Sharia had claimed responsibility for the attack on the American embassy in Libya, in which four Americans died.
            The NBC report had the headline, “U.S. officials: Benghazi emails reveal little new about attack response.” The first paragraph explains about the emails, while the rest of the article appears to be a thinly veiled attempt to make the reader doubt that this intelligence could be relied upon.
            The Fox headline read, “Lawmakers press administration for Libya answers after email release.” To their credit, the article did state that the group later denied the claims, but bias shows up here as well. The article didn’t spend much time on the emails, but instead spoke more about how the administration’s initial explanation didn’t match up with later intelligence.
            Overall, both sides appear to be trying to persuade the reader to believe something, instead of just reporting the news.


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