Bailouts and Media Interpretations

After looking at numerous news websites, it is clear that the media is all over the potential bailout requested by the three major American automobile companies. What gets interesting among these sights, however, is HOW the journalists are infusing their own biases onto the event. BBC News seemed to be the most objective in its interpretation of the events, simply giving a blow-by-blow of how GM, Ford, and Chrysler have asked Congress for a 25 million dollar bailout (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7736301.stm). There is little if any opinion injected into the article, as it merely recounts the events of the hearing itself.
By contrast, I then went and looked at an article from an American paper, the New York Times, and there was quite a difference in the amount of slant involved (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/us/politics/18web-sanger.html?_r=1&hp). Even in the first sentence, the writer (David E. Sanger) points out that “it might be worth pausing for a moment to ask what this latest bailout exercise is intended to accomplish.” Sanger then goes on to question what the government can actually do and what can potentially be done in the next few days leading up to Thanksgiving, and the next few months leading up to the new presidential term. Unlike BBC, the New York Times focuses less on mere reportage of events and more on opinionated interpretations of them.
The question of which article communicates more useful information to the public is debatable. I would argue that the BBC article is more appropriate for its international audiences, who might not necessarily want more than simple coverage of events going on in the United States. By contrast, the American public, currently in the midst of this economic crisis, will be much more interested in having interpretations of what’s going on with bailout programs served to them on a silver platter. The New York Times is no doubt a reputable source, and reading Sanger’s article could easily provide an American reader with helpful and “serious” opinions and ideas about what is going on in the world around them.

Palin, Post-Election

I am finding that reading newspapers and online articles is much less exciting and gossip-filled now that the election is over. Still, I found an article on the New York Times website published today entitled “Rehashing ’08 and Rehearsing, Perhaps, for ’12” (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/us/politics/12watch.html?ref=us). The article chronicles Sarah Palin’s post-election “speed date with history,” as she relentlessly moves from one reporter to the next to tell her side of the story after all is said and done. I think what is perhaps most interesting about this article is that Palin admits that, after all the attacks on her character and family by the media, her “trust in the news media…has been shaken.”
I find it extremely interesting that after the election has been decided, journalists are willing to give Palin more sympathy in their writing. Perhaps this is because she did not win the election (thank goodness!), or perhaps because she did not give too many news interviews to journalists during the election, but in any case, the shift in media attention from ridicule and anger to sympathy and understanding is quite interesting. By the same token, Sarah Palin, although admittedly less trusting of the media than she was before the election, is now seemingly seeking out every journalist she can get her hands on to invite them to Alaska for dinner and to discuss her plans for the future. Clearly, Palin understands the power of the media and how it can potentially help her in her possible efforts for the presidential nomination in the next four years. It’s funny how individuals and the media can have such love-hate relationships that reveal themselves in public forum, don’t you think?