Compare and Contrast

zakur

Illuminator
Z
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Aug 3, 2001
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I just read two different news stories about Ashcroft's upcoming "barnstorming" tour to pump up support for the USA PATRIOT Act. One was from the Washington Post, the other was from Fox News. Read these two stories and note the differences in emphasis, language, and tone:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,94668,00.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51538-2003Aug12.html

Here are just a few examples:

Post: Ashcroft's tour is to focused on "defending the USA Patriot Act."

Fox: Ashcroft's tour is "to explain the law to the American people."

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Post: "The legislation ... has been praised by federal law enforcement officials as a crucial reform of outdated counterterrorism policies."

Fox: "The new measures give law enforcement enhanced tools to fight the war against terrorism."

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Post: "Justice officials were also blindsided last month by the House, which voted 309 to 118 to cut off funding for part of the law that allows the government to conduct "sneak and peek" searches of private property."

Fox: "Buried within a Justice Department appropriations bill that recently passed the Republican-controlled House is language that would end such searches."

and

"In fact, the sneak and peek rules have been around for more than two decades. Ashcroft said law enforcement uses the measure on a limited basis, and it was redesigned in the Patriot Act to be used to infiltrate potential terrorist groups."

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Post: "There's been a groundswell of opposition around the country to provisions of the Patriot Act that go too far in abridging civil liberties, and the Justice Department is finally reacting to this," said Timothy Edgar, the ACLU's legislative counsel.

Fox: "According to a Fox News-Opinion Dynamics poll, 55 percent of Americans said they support the Patriot Act."

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Post: "The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Justice over one provision of the Patriot Act that allows the government to seize business, library and computer records without disclosing it has done so."

Fox: "But the ACLU is among a group of organizations that is filing lawsuits designed to chip away at portions of the act."

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Not that any of this is earth-shattering, but it is an interesting exercise in spotting bias in different news outlets.
 
that's a healthy post.

maybe we should all post our news information including 2 different source links for comparative reasons.
 
great work, I think its very telling.

Sundog: I didn't notice any biase from the Post though...
 
Malachi151 said:
great work, I think its very telling.

Sundog: I didn't notice any biase from the Post though...
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Don't you really? I see how a conservative could think so.
 
Malachi151 said:
great work, I think its very telling.

Sundog: I didn't notice any biase from the Post though...
Click to expand...

Post's bias is against the bill, Fox's bias is for the bill. The unbiased version would just list facts about events with out quoting ACLU or "dynamic opinion polls."
 
Grammatron said:


Post's bias is against the bill, Fox's bias is for the bill. The unbiased version would just list facts about events with out quoting ACLU or "dynamic opinion polls."
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I disagree. How is reporting the ACLU's position bias? That is news is it not? I see nothing biased about it at all.

Quoting the ACLU's postion is actually unbiased, its letting them speak for themselves and letting the reader see exactly what their position is.
 
Malachi151 said:


I disagree. How is reporting the ACLU's position bias? That is news is it not? I see nothing biased about it at all.

Quoting the ACLU's postion is actually unbiased, its letting them speak for themselves and letting the reader see exactly what their position is.
Click to expand...

Because ACLU took a position on the bill, that makes them biased. If you read the story and then want to know how an organization like ACLU feels about it, you go to them and ask them. True unbiased reports will never, ever quote a source who took a position on the item, it will just be facts.
 
Grammatron said:


Because ACLU took a position on the bill, that makes them biased. If you read the story and then want to know how an organization like ACLU feels about it, you go to them and ask them. True unbiased reports will never, ever quote a source who took a position on the item, it will just be facts.
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That makes no sense at all. Part of the story is that the ACLU is filing asuit against the bill. They are reporting the ACLU's position. Its no different than if aomeoen is filing a suit against Microsoft and they quote the party filing a suit againt them. Quoting the source IS good reporting. They are accurately presenting both sides of the issue, that's as unbiased as you can get.
 
Malachi151 said:


That makes no sense at all. Part of the story is that the ACLU is filing asuit against the bill. They are reporting the ACLU's position. Its no different than if aomeoen is filing a suit against Microsoft and they quote the party filing a suit againt them. Quoting the source IS good reporting. They are accurately presenting both sides of the issue, that's as unbiased as you can get.
Click to expand...

They made it part of the story, it did not need be. Is ACLU the only organization suing against the bill? What makes them so special that they became a side of the issue?
 
I prefer the second one. While it's a bit more graphic it also provides justification right in the headline. It also, I think, reflects a little more of the intensity of the action. The term GI's always seems like a friendly term, you know GI Joe and all that. U.S. Troops sounds forceful and doesn't that better reflect what is really happening.
 
There is some bias in the Washington Post article, but it's a bit more subtle. Take a look at the very last sentence. In particular, the addition of the phrase "but not solely." IMHO, it's worded in a way to make the reader get a somewhat negative impression of the PATRIOT act.

It really is a joke that Fox News can get away with calling itself "Fair & Balanced" when it's obviously the most biased mainstream news organization in the US.
 
Grammatron said:
Because ACLU took a position on the bill, that makes them biased. If you read the story and then want to know how an organization like ACLU feels about it, you go to them and ask them. True unbiased reports will never, ever quote a source who took a position on the item, it will just be facts.
Click to expand...

This simply isn't true. An unbiased report would contain quotes from people on both sides of an issue. That's journalism 101.
 
UnrepentantSinner said:


This simply isn't true. An unbiased report would contain quotes from people on both sides of an issue. That's journalism 101.
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Then you would also call Fox unbiased.

To me, the post article read like the critique of the bill with a word from ACLU to justify the critique. Fox read like it was the opposite.
 
Then you are biased.

Because ACLU took a position on the bill, that makes them biased.
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Reporting this is not biased, however.

If reporting anything having to do with a position is biased, then how would you characterize a report that mentioned two people who had positions that were in opposition to each other?

Also, nearly everything can be said to be 'taking a position'. Do you sleep in a bed? If you mention it in a report, you are exhibiting bias - bias against futons, hammocks and the floor.
 
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