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.
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2 comments:
Great post. Defiantly shows the contrast between to media sources such as BBC and The New York Times. I believe this is a perfect assessment of how NYT is more opinionated then that of BBC who is there to just report facts.
American news seems to be turning more and more into an entertainment industry than a simple place to report the facts. That's what happens when your largest source of news information in the country is entirely based on selling newspapers and keeping readers when there are so many other things available online for free. The government bailout of the media industry seems to be around the corner.
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