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.
Good post, Brandon. The fact that the bias is evident in the title already shows that the news organization in question is not concerned with neutrality. Like his "You Didn't Build That" quote, this one is sure to be utilized (out of context of course) on multiple occasion by POTUS's conservative opponents. I like that you point out the use of the word "disturbing". It is the adjectives here and there that provide the subliminal bias, and unless one is looking for it, you can completely read over it and think that there was no bias.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree, and great post! It's interesting how journalists can try to sneak in those pesky little adjectives, possibly hoping the readers won't notice the obvious bias. Another point is that yes, President Obama has upped the use of drone strikes; something his base is not too particularly happy about. Again, great post!
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