Skip to main content

I am writing an outline for an argument about what I want to be when I grow up, and how I can address a pressing issue by going into this field....

There have been many examples of media bias in the coverage of the election for the presidency this year. One recent example of bias dealt with the health of Hillary Clinton. The Trump campaign has made many statements about the health of his opponent. If people believe that Hillary Clinton has health issues, this could influence their vote.


Last weekend, Hillary Clinton suffered a health issue after she attended a ceremony remembering the events of September 11, 2001. It was reported and determined that she had pneumonia and needed to rest in order to get better.


When CBS News interviewed her husband, former President Bill Clinton, he caught himself in mid-sentence saying that these medical issues have happened frequently. When CBS News originally ran the interview, the slip of the tongue by former President Clinton was omitted. This clearly changed the dynamic of the story. If people believe that the medical situation last Sunday is a frequent occurrence, they might have concerns about voting for her. If people don’t have that knowledge, they might think this was a one-time, isolated event.


While CBS News did play the full video clip the next day, other news organizations continued to use the original, edited clip. The source I listed provides both the edited and the unedited clip of this interview.


I will give you one other example of media bias. This goes back to the late 1890s and the Spanish-American War. Newspapers, like the New York World and the New York Journal, over exaggerated stories about events that were happening in Cuba. The stories made the Spanish mistreatment sound worse than it was. They also blamed the Spanish for the explosion and sinking of the USS Maine. They also glorified Teddy Roosevelt’s role in the war. He didn’t ride up San Juan Hill. He actually walked up San Juan Hill. These newspaper stories help turn American public opinion against Spain and helped put pressure on President McKinley to have the United States declare war on Spain.


It is great that you have set as your professional goal to work to eliminate media bias. There are many people who think there is too much bias in the media today.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more