"I SHALL CALL HIM [FAKE NEWS]"

Hi everyone! Welcome back to another blog, today will be about media bias. Or as The President calls it... "fake news".

Donald Trump has made the phrase "Fake News" very prominent in his presidency, as he often targets news sites for negative articles towards him.

I've mentioned linkage institutions in previous blogs before (specifically blog 2, I believe) and media is an important one. Media is an important linkage institutions because it is able to shape our beliefs and how we are given our political information.

Media is a prominent linkage institution as it can sometimes boost your beliefs for a certain subject. Most media outlets usually target a certain political group and cater their articles to fit that parties views.

Media generally affects the public by influencing and strengthening their politic viewpoints. People generally read articles that peak their interests, so if an article relates to their values and political beliefs, they will read it. This can reinforce and strengthen their beliefs, or in special cases, change their beliefs. Which leads to what laws and propositions they will or will not vote for. The media has the power to influence it's audience on what they will believe and how they will vote for their values. To go more in depth about what media does for politics, here is a quick video:

Moving forward, we will analyze two news outlets, one liberal and one conservative. For the liberal news source we will be looking at The New Yorker.

The New Yorker is a liberal news outlet located in, you guessed it, New York

And for the conservative news source we will be looking at Breitbart.

Breitbart is a conservative news outlet located in, Los Angeles

Specifically we will be looking at their articles about a certain current event, to see how they include their political bias. The Current Event we will be looking at is the Pittsburgh Hate Crime. The Pittsburgh Hate Crime occurred on October 27, 2018, when a man opened fire into a Pittsburgh Synagogue killing 11 people and injuring 7.

First let's review The New Yorker's article about the event. The article titled "The Tree of Life Shooting and the Return of Anti-Semitism to American Life" it discusses the event that happened in Pittsburgh recently. The author discusses many events in history that has led and contributed to the shooting. It discusses the presidents fault in the situation and how the discrimination against immigrants in the past few years have contributed.

Photo taken from "The Tree of Life Shooting and the Return of Anti-Semitism to American Life" displays a heart-wrenching image used to draw in readers.

The article itself is obviously very one sided, as it emphasizes equality and immigration rights. The author mentions "age-old racism and bigotry" to emphasize the discrimination against immigrants, and also puts blame onto the president for inflaming it. As a liberal, I can sense that this can be off putting and offensive to some conservatives as they may feel attacked by these words. The sentence, "For a time after Donald Trump’s election, I collected screenshots of racist and anti-Semitic hate speech I came across" while valid because of her evidence, also seems very one sided, the author seemingly "attacks" Donald Trump throughout the article by claiming that this situation was caused by his attacks on immigrants and his obvious racism throughout his presidency.

Here is some data about the rise of hate crimes after Donald Trump was elected... shocking, right?

Deeper into the article people who have conservative viewpoints will definitely be put off by this article, as they would disagree with a lot of what the author has to say. On the other hand, liberals would be influenced by feeling more strongly about the current immigration laws and discrimination happening today. To strengthen her argument the author should include opinions and about immigration from both sides, instead of focusing on her own opinion. To also avoid offending conservatives so that they will listen to her side, she should avoid attacking and blaming Trump for the shooting happening.

Now we will analyze Breitbart’s article. Written on October 29, 2017 and titled “Pollak: Media Hype Phony ‘Jewish Leaders’ to Disinvite Trump from Pittsburgh” the author rants about how the “mainstream media” hypes up a “far-left” group to amplify claims that the Jewish community is not accepting of President Trump to visit Pittsburgh in light of the current shooting.
far left Jewish group is not inviting of Trump. He then brings in evidence that proves the rabbi of the Synagogue that experienced the shooting, has said that the president is always welcome to visit.

This photo from "Pollak: Media Hype Phony ‘Jewish Leaders’ to Disinvite Trump from Pittsburgh” shows an image that would draw in liberal attention, because it is something liberals can relate to.

The article can come off one-sided, with the authors repetitive use of “far-left group” may feel like an attack to liberals. The author was able to just say the name of the Jewish group, but instead adds “far-left” which shows the author’s bias. The bias is the article is also very prominent in the sentence, “The “Jewish leaders” in question are members of a far-left group called “Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice” that is part of the so-called “resistance” to Trump.” By including “so called ‘resistance’” this is obviously stab at liberals who disagree with Trump’s values, because of the popular phrase “not my president”.

The article would easily resonates with republicans/conservatives because it shares similar opinions and values with them. The article talks about how a other news outlets are claiming the "far-left" group is disinviting of Trump, when that is completely false. Yet, this may be offensive or angering to liberal readers, as the article is written in a way where one can interpret it as an attack towards them and their views. In order to strengthen the article's argument, the author must get rid of using "far-left" in order to keep from offending liberal readers. The author can also talk more about the group and what they are about, and also include information from the actual shooting instead of just attacking other news outlets.

Now that that's over, I don't really know how to transition into the "concluding statement" part so we're just gonna jump into it. I personally get my news from sites similar to The New Yorker, meaning I read liberal news sources. My personal go-to's would be The Huffington Post or CNN. In my opinion I believe that The New Yorker is a more credible news source, but that may be my bias talking. Apart from that, I believe it has a lot more information than the Breitbart article and it does not just focus on talking about one part of the Synagogue Shooting. I want to say I make an effort to see both sides of the news, but as a person who is not easily swayed to changing my opinion, I don't really make a huge effort to understand the conservative side of things.