Is the Iran Nuke Deal a Deal With the Devil? (Part III)

I wasn't intending for this topic to take three parts to get to, but hopefully you guys are seeing what I see. This will be the final part of dealing with the Iran deal, and we will be taking a look at the last article. The last article comes from CNN. CNN, for those you aren't aware, is also said to lean to the left. I have tackled some of their articles before and pointed out that sometimes they do. Here is the link to the third and final article. http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/24/world/meast/iran-nuclear-deal/index.html?hpt=po_c1

'3-decade gridlock broken: The nuclear deal with Iran in Geneva'. Now this seems like a proper headline. It does the job of letting us know that it is a big deal by saying its been an issue for thirty years. It tells us there is a deal. Thats it, and all it should do. Its not exactly an attention grabbing headline, but that isn't what I want. This isn't TMZ.

"The diplomatic gridlock between Iran and the West seemed immovable for decades. But on Sunday, diplomats made history when Iran and six world powers came together on an agreement over Iran's nuclear program. The deal dials back Iran's ability to work toward a nuclear weapon and at the same time loosens the choke hold of international sanctions on Iran's economy."

The opening couple paragraphs really let us know why this is important and does it without jumping to the 'skepticism' that our Congress has over it. So far, I'm digging it. "Iran has stumbled from one economic crisis to the next under the sanctions, and unemployment currently runs over 24%." Yes! I knew I saw that statistic somewhere. If you are confused, refer back to Part II where I talk about how the Iranian people are suffering because of the sanctions. It does refer to the criticism that the deal has received, but in a much better way I feel. 

"Obama's Republican opponents in Washington scorned the deal, and key ally Israel frowned upon it. Both say it will have the opposite effect, advancing Iran's alleged quest for a bomb. "This agreement shows other rogue states that wish to go nuclear that you can obfuscate, cheat, and lie for a decade, and eventually the United States will tire and drop key demands," said freshman Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida."

While they use a quote, I don't feel like its the best quote they could have used to present their argument in a good light. It seems kind of overly dramatic (surprise). 

Overall, CNN's article is what I was looking for when I wanted to learn about what the deal was. It presented the information in less bias than both MSNBC and Fox. They did a great job explaining the deal and the history and what it means. It lets us know who the key players were (John Kerry, Rouhani). Now that you all have seen all three articles about the same subject, which one did you feel appealed to what you look for more? 

Is the Iran Nuke Deal a Deal With the Devil? (Part II)

Hopefully you are coming here after reading the first post. I didn't want to have it go on too long, so I thought it would be better to break it up into a separate post. Okay, so we saw Fox News' take on the article and I proposed the question to you guys and hopefully you responded to it. Your responses are due tomorrow, so get on it!

Now, let us get back to checking this next article. Next up is MSNBC. I usually don't check out MSNBC so I can say that my knowledge of them are their reporting is limited. I do know they tend to lean to the left, so this will give me an opportunity to see. Here is their article. http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/critics-blast-iran-deal-us-defeat.

'Critics blast Iran deal as US 'defeat'. Now, ain't them some fightin' words? I think mentioning the words 'US' and 'Defeat' in the same sentence is bound to get under the skin of some people. Its not a phrase Americans usually hear, or like to hear. Think back to reports of America 'losing' the Vietnam War. It is certainly a much stronger and biased headline than Fox News, and I'm surprised already.

"Republicans and even some hawkish Democrats greeted the Iran nuclear accord with skepticism Sunday, in a challenge to President Obama as he tries to bring about a peaceful, negotiated end to decades of hostilities" 

There is that word again. Skepticism. What is this, that Conan segment where they show that many of the same news stations use the same script https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFsDnn9FjOQ? I don't know, as a reader, the word skepticism is a unusual word that I don't think is used unless they had a reason.

Our very own Saxby Chambliss is quoted as well. "Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the Georgia Republican, expressed regrets about the easing what he said were stern and effective sanctions: “We’ve got all the leverage in the negotiations, and we’ve let them out of the trap,” he said during ABC’s This Week."

Now, I'm not very happy about the use of the word "trap". The Iranian people are suffering from the sanctions because of their government. I don't have a source for this, but one of the articles might have mentioned they have a unemployment rate of like 24% or something crazy like that. We flip out when it got to be like 10% here in America. A normal unemployment rate is what, 3-4% for a healthy economy? I don't think our elected officials should be looking at this situation like its a game or a 'trap'. It is people's lives we are talking about. We put everything else but humanity first it seems like. What are your thoughts on this article? 

Is the Iran Nuke Deal a Deal With the Devil?

It gets hard coming up with titles for these blog posts. I hope you guys know I have to sit here and try to think of something clever. Anyway, let us get back on topic. News has come out recently about a deal with Iran and their nuclear program. I only heard the bare bones version of the story before this blog, so I decided to read up on it and get an idea of what is going on. This blog post is going to focus on comparing three different media sources reporting of this story and see the issues with them. I thought about finding a smaller news site to use, but those can be very hit or miss as far their reporting goes. With a story like this, I really wanted to use three of the biggest media sites because that is where a lot of people will be getting their information on.

Up first is Fox News. Here is the link for the story. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/24/capitol-hill-skepticism-over-iran-nuclear-deal-results-in-bipartisan-call-for/

"Capitol Hill skepticism over Iran nuclear deal results in bipartisan call for more sanctions". That is the headline for the article, for those of you who are skipping it. Now it seems some words in that headline are strategically placed. 'Skepticism' and 'bipartisan' seem kind of out of place to me. It seems like its worded that way to create doubt in readers minds that "Oh wow, Congress agrees about something, it must be bad". Maybe its just me.

The article doesn't spend a whole lot of time giving us viewpoints from Congress members who support the deal. It gives us a couple Hershey's Kisses, but overall it seems to be critical of the deal. An interesting point in the article was the end, with:

 "“Amazing what WH will do to distract attention from O-care” tweeted Cornyn, referring to the White House and ObamaCare. His remark drew sharp rebuke from Obama 2008 presidential campaign manager David Ploufee. “No, a real distraction would be war. Like Iraq,” he tweeted in response."

Why even post that quote? To insinuate that the deal was made to detract from the criticism that the Affordable Care Act is receiving? Then to include someone's reply who worked with Obama who referenced the Iraq War. Fox News viewers tend to be more conservative, so is it an attempt to irk their base to seeing this negatively? What do you think? I'm going end this blog post and continue it in a separate one. Look out for Part II!

Obama's Good at Killing People...

I've been searching for a few days to find an article that I wanted to write a blog about. A lot of the most recent headlines have been about the Affordable Care Act, which I covered in my last blog post. I did see something though that caused me to do a double take before immediately clicking on it. Even if it was a misleading headline, it seemed like it would be appropriate to cover for this blog. But after looking at a couple articles, it seemed to be more accurate than I thought. Therefore we will look at the article and break it down in comparison to another source.

The first website I found it on was Business Insider. I'm not awfully familiar with them but I have heard of them before. Here is the article:

http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-said-hes-really-good-at-killing-people-2013-11

The headline is pretty standard, as it gives us the information with putting a spin on it. Unlike this one from Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/the-five/article/2013/11/05/nobel-prize-winning-president-really-good-killing-people. The headline is 'Nobel Prize Winning President "really good at killing people'. This one is obviously going for a more harsh tone. While the Business Insider article mentions him being a Nobel Prize Winning President, it doesn't use that in the headline.

Essentially the article is talking about how President Obama said that he is "really good at killing people" in reference to drone strikes. The article lists some statistics about drone strikes and that Obama's administration has done more Drone Strikes than Bush's did. Now, the article isn't very subjective in its nature. It provides information, but at the same time it doesn't just stay informative.

Look here "Furthermore, the disturbing trend of the “double tap” — bombing the same place in quick succession and often hitting first responders — has become common practice." While I would agree with the author's opinion, using the words "disturbing" lets you know the author's feelings about it. 

To save time, I won't really have the space to mention much about this article. But to see a more subjective look at this topic, see the article over at The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/03/obama-drones-double-down_n_4208815.html. It does a pretty good job at presenting facts, quotes, and information without it letting you know what opinion the author has.

Affordable Care Act isn't so...Affordable?

When the Affordable Care Act was passed all those years ago, I was still a young lad in high school. I was idealistic, optimistic, and I believed that as a country we were making a great step towards being a better country. Health care was something that even then I knew was a serious problem, and that the costs were (and still are) absolutely outrageous. I didn't really fully understand the bill then, and honestly I can't say I do now. It seems like it isn't something that really has made sense. I keep hearing conflicting statements about it in the news, and wrong information being spread by friends and family. It makes it hard to understand exactly what the bill is. Now though I'm starting to wonder if our government even knows what the bill is anymore. What I do know is that personal politics aside, I am tired of the government's consistent lying to the American people.  I like to try and use current news stories to talk about and this is very recent so I wanted to pull up two articles about it and compare them. Hopefully this blog post will be so good it'll make up for not doing one sooner.

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/29/21222195-obama-administration-knew-millions-could-not-keep-their-health-insurance?lite

Read that article from NBC. It is important for the rest of this blog post. Read it? Awesome, let us continue. I think it is safe to say that the article didn't pull a whole lot of punches as far as its tone and message. It wasn't written in a factual way to me (even if the facts are true), but if you disagree let me know. To me the tone of it really seemed intent on criticizing President Obama, the government, and the Affordable Care Act. The title of the article "Obama administration knew millions could lose their health insurance" is surely a title to gain attention and incite anger and outrage. The picture they chose under the headline seems pretty deliberate to make him seem shameful or guilty. The language of the article goes on the offensive as well. It uses statistics and comments from people about how badly this new healthcare hurts them. It shows how dishonest President Obama has been with the American people about keeping their coverage.

As a taxpaying American, this part for me showed the journalist did their job and evoked an emotional response of anger.

"Today, White House spokesman Jay Carney was asked about the president’s promise that consumers would be able to keep their health care. “What the president said and what everybody said all along is that there are going to be changes brought about by the Affordable Care Act to create minimum standards of coverage, minimum services that every insurance plan has to provide,” Carney said. “So it's true that there are existing healthcare plans on the individual market that don't meet those minimum standards and therefore do not qualify for the Affordable Care Act.”

This to me is a completely dishonest statement that any POLS student should be  able to see right through. Even as a dumb high school student I remember President Obama saying people could keep their current plan if they wanted to. I've heard that statement for years. The language in Jay Carney's statement to me was poorly written and can be seen through very easily. 

I know this is a long blog post, but stick with me here. Here is an article from Fox News. 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/29/pols-push-keep-your-health-plan-act-as-files-show-govt-knew-millions-could-lose/

Surprisingly this article doesn't go on the offensive as much as the other one did. This one seems to focus more on the Republicans' response to it. It wants the Republican Party to seem like the good guys, fighting for the American people (even though they staged a bad government shutdown that affected millions of Americans just last week). It is a much simpler article to pick through the the other one.

What do you guys think? I'm interested to read any responses.

Who Is To Blame?

I am sure that a lot of you have heard about the government shutdown causing issues with funerals for soldiers who have died in combat. I try not to bring my personal politics into these blogs too much but I feel that this is a really bad development. The fact that Congress is being paid while soldier's families are not being compensated for their death is absolutely a disgrace. I thought this would be a good topic to see how differently the story is being reported by Fox News and CNN.

Let us take a look at CNN's article on the matter. Here is the link http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/08/outrage-builds-over-lapse-in-funding-for-families-of-fallen-heroes/?hpt=po_c2. Read over that. Read it? Good. Now I have to say that I this article is fairly well written as far as objective journalism goes. I was waiting for a part of it to put the blame on the Republicans but honestly it seemed pretty fair.

Here it says:

"Republicans are drafting legislation that would restore death benefit payments, which the Pentagon says were frozen under the shutdown, to the survivors of service members killed in action, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers told CNN. Discord over the lapse in funding was seemingly bipartisan."

Now let us take a look over at the Fox News side of things. Here is the link. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/08/pentagon-freezes-death-benefits-for-fallen-soldiers-families/. I think you can see a few different things here.

"House lawmakers, though, are planning to vote Wednesday on a bill to restore funding for the payments. And Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday accused the Obama administration of needlessly withholding the money."

The CNN article didn't mention anyone blaming anyone. Yet in Fox News we have the champion of the people, John Boehner claiming that this is Obama's administration's fault. Now, I'm pretty sure as a student of Political Science that the fault lies with the government shutdown. The government shutdown is the fault of Congress. So I"m not sure where Obama's administration comes into that. We should also probably blame Obama for global warming and gay rights as well.

It wasn't really a very in depth look but I wanted to examine just how an every day news story might have some bias to it. This was also a story that I was interested in covering for this blog. If anything, the government shutdown is providing me with good material to write about and especially good bias.

Both Sides of the Aisle

Sometimes when I want some entertainment (especially during a hot news story), I like to visit both CNN and Fox News' websites and compare the two. I don't get much time to watch television, so I get to read the news. I was not aware how close the government shutdown was until recently, but that is probably because it gets so close to happening you start to tune it out. I wanted to do this comparison because I see some of my peers posting that the media tries to report both sides of the story. I will say that in my experience I see the media doing that, but that does not mean there is not a slant to the story. Let us take a look at a CNN article about the budget situation. I promise it is not very long at all.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/09/30/first-on-cnn-moderate-house-republicans-working-to-line-up-votes-on-their-own-plan/?hpt=hp_t1

For your own consideration I will also post it here to save you time:

Washington (CNN) - Moderate House Republicans who want to fund the government with no strings attached are working to line up votes against a House GOP plan to renew federal coffers while chipping away at Obamacare, multiple GOP sources involved in the effort tell CNN.

Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pennsylvania, Rep. Peter King, R-New York, and others are feverishly making calls to stage what would effectively be a revolt.

They say they are hoping there are enough GOP members like them who are fed up with the tactics of the leadership that they can find enough votes to defeat the first procedural measure, known as the rule.

That would prevent the House GOP leadership from even bringing their plan up at all.

Given the makeup of the GOP caucus, these House Republican moderates would need in the ballpark of 20 Republicans to agree to defy their leadership, and be willing to face what will undoubtedly be the wrath of the conservative grassroots.

If you disagree with what I think I would like to hear your opinion in the comments. Personally I think it is hard to read this article and not see the slant that CNN seems to be putting on it. Just in the first paragraph, we can see "House Republicans...chipping away at Obamacare..." They are saying the Republican party is divided (which we know to be true based on what has been going on the last couple years). It then talks about how a representative wants to have what would be a "revolt". I find the idea laughable at this point. Is it too much to ask for a Congress that will actually act like mature adults and work on solutions instead of pouting for not getting their way and shouting no? 

Let us shift over and check out what is going on over at Fox News now. Here is the link to one of their articles on the subject:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/30/budget-showdown-test-wills-as-shutdown-deadline-comes-into-view/

Their article is a little bit longer so I'm not going to able to link it. If you're too busy to read I'll try and give you the highlights. Here is a quote from the article: 

The Senate earlier Monday rejected a GOP proposal that would delay the health care law by one year and repeal an unpopular medical device tax. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid warned Republicans not to fiddle with the spending bill any more. "As we said Friday, nothing has changed. If they try to send us something back, they're spinning their wheels," Reid said. 

Now, the wording of this statement would seem to lean against the Democratic controlled Senate. "The Senate rejected" It might not seem so bad, but in this context as the reader it seems to put them in a negative light. Then we have what seems to be a threatening statement from Harry Reid, that they are not willing to compromise. It could be true, yes, but the wording of it makes it seem very negative and tries to create sides to the story. 

On a side note, one of the things that confuses me most about the whole situation with the 'Obamacare' issue is the fact that this has already been passed by Congress. It was signed by the President and upheld by the Supreme Court. Obama won the election again with his health care plan as part of his platform. Yet there are still those that do not want it. I fail to see the logic, but maybe that is just me. 

There is another passage I would like to take a look at. 

Democrats have already labeled this a "Republican government shutdown." But Republicans on Sunday hammered Reid and his colleagues for not coming back to work immediately after the House passed a bill Sunday morning.

This statement has two parts to it. The first is that it makes it seem like the Democrats are the only one blaming the other. The second is that it calls out the Democrats for not showing back up after a bill was passed. I have no problem with these things as long as they make sure to use the same language towards the other party as well. This issue is not simply to fault Republicans OR Democrats, it is something that they have BOTH caused and need to work together to fix. 

Attacking the Democrats...

While scanning the news for good articles to share with my peers, I happened to notice one about something Senator John McCain said. Here is the article, it isn't long at all but check it out. Now, this headline is certainly something that will grab your attention. "John McCain "We Are Dividing the Republican Party Rather Than Attacking Democrats" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/27/john-mccain-republican-party_n_4001786.html. For me, it makes me angry. But this blog posts are not the platform for political ranting, so I would like to try and break it down intellectually and use logic and rational thinking to break down why what he said is so wrong.

Let us talk about the headline first. To see it again, just look up, or check the article. As a voter who tries to support a candidate and not the party, seeing the rabid group mentality of the parties is disturbing and a trend I wish would stop. It does not seem like we have politicians who will stand on their own anymore, and instead will follow their parties rules and toe the line and not have a voice of their own. How can I honestly give my support to a candidate if they can't have their own voice? They should not be afraid to voice their opinion, especially when they should be voicing the opinion of their constituents in the first place. I think we have come to a sad time in American politics when people have to vote for the 'lesser of two evils'. During the last Presidential election, I honestly did not fully support either candidate. So I voted for the one I thought would do the least damage to the country.

The next issue I have is the idea that the Republicans need to attack the Democratic Party. As a voter, this seems petty and does not make me want to support the Republican Party in future elections. I would rather see them trying to work together and find compromises. I want to see them offering their own plans and ideas as opposed to just simply opposing whatever the Democrats are doing. They are focusing so much on trying to fight Obama and the Democrats that the issues at hand aren't being solved. Regardless if they support 'Obamacare' or not, we cannot deny that we have a serious issue with healthcare in this nation. Instead of trying to find an alternative or come up with their own plan of action, their only idea seems to be lets just scream and shout as loud as we can about it until we can get rid of it. As a young voter this isn't the kind of thing I want to see my elected officials doing.

The Danger of Media Bias

I think as Political Science majors or as people who keep up with the news most of us know a little bit about George Zimmerman. Whether or not you agree with the outcome of his trial is a different story. As it stands legally, he is innocent as declared by a court of law. My issue is not with the verdict though. My issue lies with the media's response to the whole case in general. Some people question whether it would have went to trial if it had not been for the demand of the people and the negative response from the media. Are we living in a mob society now, where when the people scream for justice we must follow their demands? There seems to be a whole lot of gray area in the whole situation. Even with his acquittal, George Zimmerman can't seem to avoid making headlines. Over the past few weeks he responded to an accident to help, been pulled over for speeding a few times, and now his wife has called 911 on him.

This week I would like to focus on an article from Salon.com. Whether or not you think it is a legitimate news website is for you to determine. As far as I am concerned they have a large reader base and it is a bigger website. Articles like this one get thrown around a lot.

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/12/take_his_guns_away_already_why_the_george_zimmermans_are_so_protected/

Now, I would take a moment to read through the article to see what you think about it before I start going through it. I'm guessing it did not take long to see what kind of stance the writer takes on George Zimmerman. While this isn't really a news article (at least I hope not) I keep like some of the comments are not rational. Granted, she does bring up some points about whether laws are right or not. But you have to remember it is the law. There were no charges brought up against George Zimmerman by his estranged wife, so what did the writer expect the police to do? By law he has rights to own guns. You can believe this is ok or not, but it is how it stands. His wife changed her story a few hours later, which hurts the credibility of it all. If something did happen or didn't, any further emergency calls of charges she might want to file will be harder to believe. Especially when she lied under oath in a courtroom during the trial.

As far as I believe I strongly doubt this will be the last time George Zimmerman's name makes a headline. He is a strong case for people wanting more restrictions on guns. While the man might be legally innocent, he is guilty in the minds of many people. The people's verdict was given long before the legal one was due to media responses such as the article I linked you to. Justified or not, we should not be branding a man guilty or innocent. That is not our job as a people.

Difference in Reporting

Two of the biggest news outlets that are out there right now are CNN and Fox News. When you are reading your daily news,  you would expect to read a very similar article about a story on both websites. However, both seem to have a different way of reporting some stories. This might not be the best example of it, but this is a very recent event that I was reading about so it is a bit more relevant. If you have read the news today, you might have heard Israel test fired a missile this morning in the Mediterranean. If you have not read the news today, then you can catch up on it now.

Here is the article from CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/03/world/meast/mediterranean-missile/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

First thing I'd like to point out is the headline. 'Israel: Missile test-fired in the Mediterranean'. Now, no where in the headline does it mention that it was a joint venture with the United States. If you read the article though it mentions that it was in the first couple lines. Headlines are important though. A headline is there to interest the reader, and can set the tone for the article. A headline can be misleading, or sometimes not even completely accurate. In this case, it omitted that the U.S. was part of the missile firing. Instead of me explaining it, and to try and boost communication with readers, why do you think this is? Do you think it just happened like that? Or do you think that CNN did it for a reason? I'd like to know what you think.
Next, let us take a look at the article itself. The article seems to put a lot of emphasis that the U.S. was not involved in this missile test.

Here is the article from Fox News about the same news.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/09/03/russia-foreign-ministry-claims-two-ballistic-objects-fired-in-eastern/

This headline reads 'Israel says it carried out joint missile test with US in Mediterranean'. This headline includes the part about the U.S. being involved. I'll ask the same question here. Why did Fox News choose to include it, but CNN did not? This article seems to stress more U.S. involvement in the missile launch then CNN's article. Then it goes on to talk about the rocky U.S. and Russian relations. The CNN article did not mention this at all.

These articles both do the job of reporting the news, but is it without bias? Why do they choose to report the way they do? It is hinted and I am sure there is statistical data that Fox News' viewer base tends to be more conservative than the CNN viewer base. Is that why we see a difference in reporting? I'd like to think that is a possible explanation. With all the tensions brewing in Syria, there will surely be a lot more stuff to blog about as we draw closer to more conflict.

The Beginning

I believe after much internal debate about what I want to blog about that I have come to an answer. Of course since it is early, I might still decide on something else. I am normally pretty busy, so I do not get to watch the news on CNN, NBC, or any of the other news programs out there. What I am able to do is read news articles. I enjoy reading news articles as it keeps me informed and I can often skim the articles to understand the story. This presents a problem though, just as watching televised news does. How do I know if the information presented in the article is factual? Sure there are definitely more reputable websites to read the news from, but that does not mean they are presented without a bias. 

Sometimes articles headlines on some websites are slanted in a way to be intentionally read without being factual or to give the reader a preset notion of the information in the article. I see this type of thing all the time in news stories. I have to stop and go back and check other sites to see if the story is the same on other news outlets. Sometimes other readers will call out the article in the comments. 

After a quick search, I found an article with a slanted headline. 

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/walmarts-latest-scheme-replace-middle-class-underclass-forced-buy-its-shoddy-goods

"Walmart's Latest Scheme to Replace the Middle Class with an Underclass Forced to Buy its Shoddy Goods"

Whether or not you support Wal-Mart's business practices, it is hard to disagree with the message this headline is delivering. Just by reading this headline, you know that it is going to be an anti-Walmart article. If you use social media like Reddit or Digg to see your news, than you might come across this article without going to the website. Or sometimes you will just see the headline. The headline can stick in your head and make you think differently if you do not read the article or understand the website you are reading the news on. Alternet.org is a very left-wing liberal website. Regardless of your political leanings, these websites exist for both liberals and conservatives who will try to appeal to their readers rather than reporting facts in a lot of cases. 

By using 'Wal-Mart's Latest Scheme', it implants the idea in the readers mind that Wal-Mart is a shady company who plots how to make more money. Whether or not the information is true is irrelevant when you read a slanted headline. These kinds of headlines exist everywhere and are created daily and we need to be vigilant about not having our opinions slanted by misleading articles and headlines.