Week 4 Newswriting

Media bias is something that exists within all different types of news. Whether that news is politically based and is coming from major media sources such as Fox News or CNN, or is a wacky article about celebrity drama written by TMZ, all media has bias. In this article, I will explore the media bias of three outlets on the three ends of the political spectrum. The three outlets I will explore are CNN (left) NPR (center) and Fox News (Right).

The first thing to focus on when looking at media outlets is the narratives that they present. Narrative journalism can be defined as using elements of fictional writing to display nonfictional news. Both CNN and Fox News use very similar narratives to display very different news. The narrative that they both present can be described as an emotional exaggeration. This can best be seen in the Headlines/Introductions of many of their articles. For example, a recent Fox news article was introduced with “Crikey, Biden appears to forget world leader's name”. The article refers to a stutter that President Biden had when referring to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. The introduction of the article uses the Australian slang “crikey” which means to be shocked or surprised. The purpose of this is to make the democratic president seem less credible. NPR, unlike the other two, tries to take a much more neutral approach to news. Most of their articles begin with nouns or boring adjectives with the intent to not invoke emotion. Because of this, their use of narrative journalism is very underwhelming and neutral.

The next Ideology to look at is framing. Framing in news writing can be defined as using the threads of a narrative to build an element. In this ideology, all three outlets are different. To begin, CNN takes a worried, but thoughtful approach to framing. Most of their stories are based around the outline of “you should be concerned about this, and this is what needs to be done to fix it”. A great example of this is the news relating to the Covid-19 pandemic. Upon visiting the CNN website, the first thing to pop up is an article headlined “Scientists examine kids' unique immune systems as more fall victim to Covid” with a follow-up article underneath titled “Dr. Anthony Fauci reacts to FDA recommendation on booster shots”. This is a great example of how CNN’s tactic of framing follows the model of problem/solution. Fox News takes a much different approach. Their tactic of framing falls much more into the category of cynicism. One of the first articles to pop up when visiting their website was titled “List of mistakes Biden made in Afghanistan”. The tactic of framing used by Fox News focuses on creating an element of stereotype and cynicism toward the democratic officials in office, and toward the direction that America is moving in as a whole. NPR, again, remains very neutral in its framing tactics. On the front page of their website, most of the articles are not political or related to issues that are not as polarized as some of the main current events in the country such as Covid, The Presidential election, or Black Lives Matter.

These framing tactics can also be used to describe each media outlet's agenda. An agenda can be described as using framing tactics and narratives to create a point of interest for your readers. The agendas of the three companies, like framing, are very different. Before going into each outlet's agenda and how they differ, I believe it is important to recognize that agendas change over time, and political news agendas can change with elections, and shift of power from one political party to another. CNN’s agenda is to create positive buzz around the democratic party and promote decisions made by them. Fox News’ agenda is to create stereotypes around the democratic party to negate the decisions made by them. NPR’s agenda is to promote neutral news that steers away from some of the key political issues in the country today. All three of these agendas contain bias. 

All three companies use these three tactics to build off each other to create specific elements for the reader. A narrative lays a framework, the framework creates a point of interest, and the agenda supports the point of interest or element. Bias exists because each company has its own way of supporting its specific element.