InkTank

Cain's comments on the chopping block

 

Herman Cain, the first Republican to declare his candidacy in the 2012 presidential race, made some strong statements Tuesday at The Heritage Foundation's weekly Bloggers Briefing. The most noted statement in the media was a fervent phrase regarding Planned Parenthood. "It's not Planned Parenthood. It's Planned Genocide," Cain said.

Cain's indictment upon the controversial health care provider was illuminated in the media, particularly by a CNN reporter attending the briefing. The comments were not condoned. They were put on the chopping block.

Sidenote: Cain is likely what drew the reporter to the event. I attend the briefing every week and have never seen him before.

The lede in Shannon Travis' Political Ticker post is what first hints at the article's subjectiveness. It says:

Using unusually harsh words, a potential presidential candidate echoed some previous comments: claiming that Planned Parenthood's original mission was to "help kill black babies before they came into the world."

In the big White House beyond the iron gates

By Jenny Miner and Matt Boivin (WJC Spring '11)

It's obvious that the following blogpost was written by two people of the opposite gender, because one thought the headline should be something like “Beyond the Iron Gates” and the other thought a fitting title would be “Inside the Big White House.”

Anyway, the headlines may suggest different sentiments, but I think Matt Boivin and I had the same sense of awe when we both got to report on an event at the White House today. The following is an account of our experience. 

Jenny: It was approximately nine in the morningwhen I made my way toward the White House to attend a conference on Bullying Prevention on behalf of my publication. Though it was a rainy day and my umbrella was not doing much to keep me from getting wet, I was excited. I walked along Pennsylvania Ave. for a few minutes, trying to figure out where I was to enter, before finally asking a Secret Service agent. If you've never seen them before, they look quite intimidating and don't exactly look approachable.

I failed to mention that I was a part of the press, so the agent directed me to a security post directly opposite of where I needed to go. Luckily, I ran in to Matt, who figured out my error.

Who is confused about tax-cuts, raise your hand?

Tax-cuts have generated more gossip than Justin Bieber this week as the White House and congressional Republicans continue to negotiate a decision about whether to temporarily or permanently extend the cuts.

The Washington Times article from Sunday, Nov. 14 titled “Tax-cut extension deal takes shape on Hill” has several inconsistencies from repetition of the same facts to terminology errors.

 The title itself leads the reader to believe the tax-cut extension deal will be shaped on the Hill when the issue is between the White House and congressional Republicans which the article states in the lede.

The White House and Republicans in Congress edged ever closer to a deal Sunday on at least a temporary extension of all of the George W. Bush-era tax breaks that are due to expire at the end of the year.

The lede suggests the White House and congressional Republicans have been discussing the temporary extension of the tax breaks by saying they “edge ever closer” to a deal. However, the third paragraph says they remain “well short of an agreement”. This would leave the reading wondering if they are closer or well short of an agreement.

The author uses quotes around the words “middle-class” and “temporary” when detailing the negotiations of the tax-breaks. However, he does not use quotes for the word permanent which suggest he is conveying his own view points in the story. A small punctuation that may be looked over by some might cause the reader to see the side of the story in the way the author is presenting it rather than as facts.

While the lede suggest the White house and congressional Republicans have been engaging in discussions about the tax-cuts, the quoted sources in the article come from speakers on talk shows. It says they are “edging closer to a deal” but there were no negotiations quoted in the article. The article should have indicated their willingness to compromise rather than lead the reader to believe they were coming to an agreement.

GOP in the House!

In an expected turn of events, GOP takes power over the House of Representatives, while Democrats cling on to the Senate.

On Nov. 3 there was no way around this story. It dominated the airwaves and the internet because it was what Americans had been waiting for since the first poll closed on Nov. 2.

The Street, a leading digital financial media company, reported the results as timely as everyone else.

The first problem with The Street’s account of the election results was the lede.

Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in Tuesday's midterm elections, removing Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House in the process -- a sign that some Americans are losing patience with President Barack Obama as the economy continues to flag. The upstart Tea Party faction of the GOP played a key role in the change, enjoying the first victory for one of its candidates to a Senate seat in the process with Rand Paul's victory in Kentucky.  

A lede should only be one sentence. By reading this first paragraph the reader is unaware of what the most important part of the story is. Another problem with the lede is they buried the real lede further into the story. The removal of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House was not the biggest sign that Americans are losing patience with President Obama. Her removal is a consequence of the Democrats losing the House, which we already knew from the first part of the sentence. It would have been better to mention by how many seats the Democrats lost.

Real Clear Politics does an excellent job of creating a short and informative lede.

Democrats narrowly retained control of the Senate after Tuesday's elections, keeping at least 51 seats.

Although RCP’s story begins from a different point of view you know that Democrats have control of the Senate and by how many seats. Their following paragraph gives you the information about Republicans taking control of the House and by how much as well.

Objectively reporting on media bias

In case you haven't been following the drama, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann was suspended Friday for violating NBC News policies by donating to three Democratic candidates, two Arizona congressional candidates, and Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway. No one particularly understands why MSNBC cares. Even the incredibly conservative Weekly Standard was baffled by MSNBC's decision.

Politico broke the story, and this inspired Politco's media reporter, Keach Hagey, to do an analysis of the situation at MSNBC. This was before the station announced that Olbermann would be back on the air tomorrow.

Doing an overview of a situation like this can make your article blur the line between news story and opinion piece, and I honestly couldn't decide if it was opinion or not the first time I read it. Then, after re-reading it, I realized that she never goes into first person, asks rhetorical questions, or anything that would inject some sort of impartiality into her story, so the only way that's left for her to show bias would be to not show both sides of the story, a temptation that she never gave into, as the following quote from her story shows:

The debate throws into sharp relief the difficult balancing act that MSNBC has been trying to pull off with its new identity. On one hand, the network has aggressively moved to court progressives with its new branding campaign “Lean Forward” and eyebrow-raising decisions like assigning an all-liberal panel to cover the midterm election results Tuesday.

But on the other, it remains tightly bound to its straight-news network sibling NBC, with which it shares both talent and management, and for which its liberal identity is a cause of concern.

In these grafs, Hagey shows the main problem with the Olbermann situation, and does so without injecting any of her own opinion. She just gives the facts, something essential when trying to remain objective when writing an article like this.

The future of Biotechnology: Its in the Genes

A 20 year policy has been reversed by the federal government no longer allowing human genes to be patents because they are part of nature, reported the New York Times on Friday.

The patented genes in question currently are linked to breast and ovarian cancer, and could have a huge impact on medicine and the biotechnology industry if the Patent Office puts the government ruling into effect. 

The article goes on to report proponents saying genes isolated from the body are chemicals that are different from those found in the body and are eligible for patents, but in the brief the government said the mere isolation of a gene does not change it’s nature. 

“The Chemical structure of native human genes is a product of nature, and is no less a product of nature when that structure is ‘isolated’ from it’s natural environment than are cotton fibers that have been separated from cotton seeds or coal that has been extracted from the earth, said in the brief”

Another story on why the Tea Party sucks

Most of the stories I have read on the Tea Party movement are relentless - and that is entirely what I expect on the editorial pages. But the same sentiment has found its way to the news page as well.

In a Washington Post article from Sunday, Oct. 24 the paper presented findings after what seemed to be a lengthy investigation on the Tea Party as a whole. The Post attempted to contact every Tea Party "group" and, in essence, verify their existence. After making sure they did actually exist, the Post then asked them questions about their chief concerns - which of course included their thoughts about the president's race and religion, since that is all the Tea Party really cares about.

Maybe I'm just a bit too conventional for these modern day "call out the stupid group (any conservative group, of course) and give them grief" journalists and so I'm being too harsh, but I just think Tea Party coverage is ridiculously biased. 

My favorite parts of the article are the quotes by one of the most uneducated person in the group - and the article then acts as though that is a decent representation from the group as a whole. Obviously, all Tea Party members hate Obama because he’s black and they, of course, think he is a Muslim....and a socialist. Or at least the Post would let you think so.

No Room to Play on Recess Talk

Rooted strongly along with my Christian and politically liberal values are my journalistic ones. I find it hard sometimes, as most people do, to admit that a writer or publication that I enjoy reading is discreetly bias, especially when it is a bias that I share to an extent. Nonetheless, Nico Pitney's latest article on the Huffington Post about recent recess appointments, pushes the lines of impartiality.

First, let me note that the most obvious give away of a bias are found in the verbs and the adjectives.

President Obama's decision to bypass the vacationing Senate and directly appoint 15 nominees has produced some expected cries of outrage from Republicans.

The phrase "cries of outrage"  in the lede sentence of the article sets the tone for the rest of the story. While the phrase does an excellent job in attracting the reader's eyes and keeping them focused and eager to learn more, Pitney went about it in an unfair way. It is always good to catch and hook the reader quickly in a writing piece, and generally strong verbs and multiple adjectives are the way that broadcast news does that. Sometimes, an anchor can get away with that, but in print, the reader can see over and over again the "cries of outrage."

Health care: Giving you the facts

For all of the protesters that picket our president as a socialist and shout to the top of their lungs that they will move out of the country should the bill pass, I want to ask them now where is their plane ticket?

Yesterday someone asked me, "How can you support Nancy's bill?"

I responded, "I support 32 million Americans."

Health care is such a divisive issue but in reality, health insurance withholds a common ground that every party and every person can share. Everyone wants to be healthy. Everyone wants to be happy. Everyone wants to be able to get help when they are sick and down on their luck. And no one wants to be poor for everything that was just mentioned.

The problem lies within the fact that along with that, just about everyone agrees that the health insurance industry is America has major problems, but not everyone can agree to a solution. I will not help ease the tension in the nation not by protesting either side, but rather by informing both sides.

• Over the next 10 years, the health care legislation will cost $940 billion. 
• It will help to cover 32 million uninsured Americans
• When fully implicated the percent of insured will increase from 83% to 95%
• Everyone will be required to have some form of health insurance by 2014 or pay a fine
• Higher premiums for women would be banned and insurers would be forbidden from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions
• Kids and young adults can stay on their parents insurance until they are 26 years of age
• Medicaid is expanded
• Taxes supporting the bill are not implemented until 2018
• Seniors receive 50% discount on brand name prescription drugs

It's Healthcare, with a Twist

It's the evening of Saturday, March 20th in Washington, D.C., and with a vote on the healthcare bill set for tomorrow, Congressional and political reporters are shooting out articles left and right on the latest developments. From my window, I can see the white light from the column tholus atop the Capitol building signifying that the House of Representatives is in night session.

At 5:07 p.m. the Washington Post's Ben Pershing, Paul Kane and Lori Montgomery published an article about the latest developments surrounding the passage of the healthcare bill. That would be all well and fine if "Obama delivers plea to 'help us fix this system'" wasn't a sorely unbalance news article that clearly supports the Democrats push to pass the bill tomorrow.
 
Let me give you a paragraph breakdown here to prove my point. The article is 26 paragraphs long. According to my math, 14 paragraphs are devoted to quoting or paraphrasing democrats and supporters of the bill. Eight are devoted to background informations and common knowledge. If you do the math, that leaves five paragraphs for the Republicans and opponents of the bill. That's not quite balanced, if you ask me. In the words of the Society of Professional Journalist's Code of Ethics, "Journalists should be ... fair in gathering, reporting and interpreting information."