Analysis of News Programs

I am by no means a regular news watcher, in fact I tend to avoid it. I prefer other means to keep myself informed. Be that as it may I watched a few different news programs, but the most polarizing is the comparison between a Connecticut Fox broadcast and a CNN Newsroom broadcast.

Oh Fox...they do not have the best reputation to begin with. Some call it Faux News or some are just like this guy:

The Fox broadcast was like a machine gun of scary stories. One after another they mentioned stories about job cuts, violence, etc. There were a few stories in particular that really stood out. One headline read an "update on the presidential election," however they only provided an update on the Republican candidates. To use one of Hall's terms, this was definitely an Intentional approach. By excluding Democratic candidates Fox is only providing one side of the story to their audience. At the same time, Fox knows its audience is probably mostly Republican anyway. There was also a story about two high school students getting hit by a car. The people driving the car were also students. Fox used the constructivist approach for this story. Through interviews Fox wants us to think that teenage drivers are dangerous and should be feared.

CNN Newsroom was a less fear intensive program. For starters, it was way more diverse. Fox had all white anchors and all white stories. The anchor for CNN is Don Lemon, a gay, black man. This was reflected in the stories too. One story was about a young gay, black teen, who was viscously beaten by four or five other men. This was an intentional choice for Lemon to show what openly gay youth go through, and maybe even what Lemon himself went through. However, there were still fear inspiring stories in this broadcast. Right before a commercial they showed a burning school bus. As it turned out everyone was okay, but CNN used that image to keep the viewer engaged.

The news is a complicated piece of the media. It seems that no matter where you turn for news, you get mostly similar stories. The culture of fear is very present in the news media. This is mostly why I choose to avoid traditional news programing. It is no wonder why people prefer to get their news with some humor mixed in i.e. The Daily Show, or Real Time with Bill Maher. It was interesting to take an analytic look at the news.