Blog 3:
Slanted
reporting always a problem but gets so much worse during this time of year-
election time. When looking for an example of slanted reporting it wasn’t an
issue of finding one but narrowing done which article I wanted to write about.
So many people get their news from their friends through Facebook so that was
where I wanted to get my article from-one my friends linked to on Facebook. After
reading several I decided on one that several friends linked to from Occupy
Democrats, Trump Said He’d “Get Rid” Of
Lobbyists. He Just Hired Dozens For Top Roles” found at: http://occupydemocrats.com/2016/11/11/trump-said-hed-get-rid-lobbyists-just-hired-dozens-top-roles/
. Right away noticing from the source this article clearly is not going to be
unbiased, it comes from a very liberal source referencing the Occupy Wall
Street movement and is not shy about it. The website’s “About Us” Sections
claims that the website is a “political organization and information website”
yet those two things cannot truly exist together in harmony, political
organizations have an agenda they are pushing while information websites
attempt to present information with the least bias possible.
Jumping
into the article it is clear from the beginning that the author, Colin Taylor,
would not be trying to present each side reasonably or to give a full picture
of the issue. Taylor calls Trump’s voters “naïve” immediately insulting the
intelligence oh around half the population of the country, the people who put
Trump in power. I am sure there are naïve voters on both sides of the issue not
all on one side. Taylor shows his own ignorance by claiming that “Drain the
swamp!” was the “rallying cry” for Trump’s campaign. If anything “Make America
Great Again” is by far the more popular and well known rallying. Clearly using
mis-leading facts destroys an author’s authority and creates doubt in the
reader’s eyes.
Taylor does use
some concrete evidence by listing who Trump is considering using for his
cabinet as well as their credentials. The ones listed are indeed lobbyists who
Trump claimed would be kicked out of the Washington. These people however do
have relevant experience to the position they are being assigned to. Taylor
does not include a discussion of WHY these people were chosen or discuss what
they could offer to the position, defaulting to assuming that there would be
some corruption at work.
Another point
Taylor uses to decry Trump is the fact that ““the president-elect’s
spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, declined a request for comment, as did nearly
a dozen corporate executives, consultants and lobbyists serving on his
transition team” from the New York Times claiming that this would
be a “Common theme in the Trump Administration”. It is highly probable that the
Trump Administration is incredibly busy getting ready for the upcoming presidency
and cannot possibly respond to all requests for comment. The Trump
administration has already staged several press conferences and I am sure will
continue to do more trying to keep the public informed on his policies.
Occupy Democrats does not feel like it needs
to be an unbiased source of news. It’s audience is already people who by and
large already agree with the liberal views expressed by the website and so will
agree with the slanted view they present. The problem with this is that it
creates world where people can exist in an echo chamber, only hearing their own
opinions echoed back to them.
No comments:
Post a Comment