Media Blog #2

For this post, I'm going to compare and contrast two different news outlets and their opinions on Trump's first 100 days, a source of contention between people with differing ideological views. The two news outlets will be the conservative Fox News and the slightly liberal CNN.


The Fox news article provides plenty of loaded language for those that want it. It has plenty of vague phrases and words when stating all the things Trump has delivered on like "stronger, more prosperous America," "restore confidence in our national security," and "preserve the integrity of the supreme court." These are all used in an attempt to try and make Trump's promises he supposedly achieved sound good when realistically they don't mean anything. Anyone can interpret what a "stronger, more prosperous America" means, showing the (kind of) genius in Trump's promises, allowing people to come in and say he succeeded upon later interpreting those vague promises, saying they meant this or that after the fact. Reification was used when the word "constitutional" was put alongside conservative to invoke strong feelings of power, freedom, and everything good in the world. All of these could be changed to have more negative meanings, changing the argument. Words like "more prosperous" could be changed to functional to make Trump's achievements now sound minimalistic and baseline. "Constitutional" could be changed to old fashioned to make the argument sound worse and less appealing to people. The rest of the words are meaningless and can't be changed to anything to flip the meaning of the argument because they don't mean anything in the first place.

The CNN article provides less, although some vagueness as well, words and phrases like "seemingly last ditch effort," "low tolerance," and "blend of paranoia and distrust." Both of those could be interpreted differently and changed to more positive words to completely change the argument. Last ditch effort could be changed to quick and decisive to completely change the argument, making Trump's buzzer beater attempts at achievements seem better. Paranoia and distrust could be changed to carefulness to sound more like it is a strategic slowness than a fault, changing the argument. While CNN had fewer of the other kinds of loaded language, it did contain a lot of language that was very biased and opinion based. Someone with a different political ideology at heart might think completely differently about the topic. A good one in the first few paragraphs is, "struggling to overcome an onslaught of crises."

Both of these articles also seemed to be loaded in general, not in nit picky phrasing, but in broad terms. Both brought up only the good or bad accomplishments depending on their political ideology, granted CNN did give Trump a few points. Both seemed to ignore the entire situation, choosing to look at the argument from only one side, something that really frustrates me and adds to our political discourse. We need to agree on a common reality and take all things into account, not just the ones that fit our narrative. Our political situation will never change unless we start to acknowledge what the other side has to say and see things from multiple viewpoints.



Fox News:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/04/28/rnc-chairwoman-trumps-historic-first-100-days.html\

CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/politics/state/inside-donald-trumps-tumultuous-first-100-days/