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.
Brandon,
ReplyDeleteNice post! I like how you compare biases in your posts. Thought-provoking analyses. I thought I would add on to your analysis here. Further down the FOX article, it states,
"I think it's disgraceful that they're withholding these benefits," Boehner said, urging Obama to sign the bill that the House will take up on Wednesday."
Basically, the article implies that Obama is holding up the process and thus places the blame for inactivity on him. Yet, in classic FOX fashion, it contradicts itself in the next sentence in further explaining,
"The bill would still have to pass the Senate before arriving on Obama's desk. If that bill fails to pass, the Pentagon says, families will be reimbursed once Congress passes an appropriations bill."
So, the bill has to get out of Congress first before it can even reach Obama, who will more than likely sign it. Even without his signature, the onus is still on Congress because it can bypass the president and simply pass an appropriations bill (i.e. budget) to keep this program funded. So, in essence, the president has nothing to do with this issue, yet the article does well to make sound like he plays the role of gatekeeper.
Regards,
Plamen
I am glad that you pointed out the bias in these two articles and I think it is outrageous that Congress is still getting paid during the Governmental shutdown but soldiers families are not getting anything. Also, I have noticed that the same information is repeated on most of the articles about the Governmental shutdown but some news outlets, like Fox news, just add their own twist of bias to the information. Plamen it is funny how you noted that they blamed Obama for holding up the process and then later in the article said that the bill has to go through the Senate before even reaching Obama's desk.
ReplyDeleteGreat articles to bring attention to. This is exactly the problem we face today. We can go on three different news sites and read three completely different versions of the same story. This makes it difficult to decipher fact from fiction. Rather than FOX blaming both Republicans and Democrats for the shutdown, they automatically blame Obama. The other news sources are guilty of the same thing. I read a story a few days ago on CNN that said "Obama blames Republicans for shutdown," and the entire article discussed how the Republicans will not work with Obama to settle the shutdown. I also like the point Plamen made about how this article makes it seem like Obama has the role of gatekeeper instead of Congress. It's amazing how a story can stray so far from reality.
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