Nevertheless, I set out to do some research to see what I could find. Well, wouldn't you know that today happened to be the day that President Obama was releasing his $3.8 trillion budget for the upcoming fiscal year. What luck!! The day I set out to do some framing of news stories research, the President just happened to release his budget (keep in mind this budget is probably the most highly charged political document the president could release at this time, and to top it off, its an election year). So, where did I turn for my news stories? Well, of course I went to our old friends Fox and MSNBC to see what they had to say about this event. Well, as you can imagine, Fox was skeptical and MSNBC was confident. I'll give the headlines as an example:
Fox:
Budget: Deficit Buster or Fuzzy Math?
MSNBC:
Obama releases budget plan: 'We can’t just cut our way into growth'
I won't bore you with a long summary of the articles but, what struck me was how the same story about the budget was framed in entirely different ways. I'll start with something simple, what the document released today should be called. To Fox, what was released today was a "spending plan." To MSNBC, it was a "budget." The Fox story started out by throwing out huge, scary deficit numbers that would frighten any American. It said things like though the deficit will be cut by $4 trillion over 10 years, the "huge entitlement programs" will add another $6.6 trillion to the deficit over the same time period. Sounds scary right? The facts in the Fox article rang as true, however they were all the negative issues surrounding the budget. MSNBC told a different story. The MSNBC article never once mentioned the huge deficit numbers that Fox mentioned. Instead, the article quoted the President and focused on the positives of the budget, facts that were also true, yet more positive. While Fox told us the deficit now exceeded the GDP, MSNBC told us the deficit to GDP ratio would be at a "sustainable level" by 2018. Wow! Same news story, accurate facts, completely different message.
Though I have already rambled on for too long I must draw it together in closing. These articles are a prime example of how the media can spin the stories in a way that suits their interests. Obviously, I was being naive when I thought that all stories would be the same. However, I never could have imagined that the same news story could be told in such different ways. In our time, the media is a powerful machine that is able to put out a story in a way that portrays their ideas and beliefs. The Fox readers will walk away motivated to oppose the President and fix our ailing government (which will be crippled by the new budget). The MSNBC readers will be optimistic for the future and come away with a belief in the President. While we may not be able to quantify the media's ideological bias, it is obviously present. These stories give us an example that furthers the assertion that the media plays the role of a marketplace. These articles are tailored to the respective viewers of the respective networks. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this, I'm simply saying media outlets do have a bias, ideological and informational, they do play the role of a marketplace, and they definitely have a way of telling the story the way they want it to be told.
Phew if I would have written anymore, I would have sold it as a book! Sorry for the length guys!!
Thanks!
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