American Politics

Patrick Kern

Professor Goergen

Portfolio Assignment #6

I will be comparing the information presented by two different media outlets. The first source is CNN television. The second source will be the Chicago Tribune Newspaper. Some of the issues I will cover are to compare and contrast the topics covered, the biases within the reporting if any, and other differences and similarities between the two.

The biggest difference between the two is that CNN is live news; so therefore, they may break a story that is currently taking place that may not make the papers until the next day. For example, while I was watching the CNN Newsroom, a story broke that a group of whales were trapped in Florida's everglade park, and that ten had already died. This is a story that may not even appear in the Chicago Tribune at all, because it is not local. Even if the story does appear in the tribune, it will probably take up a very small portion of the paper.

Overall, the topics covered by both CNN and the Chicago Tribune are very similar, they just vary in that CNN is constantly covering the biggest stories internationally, while the Tribune will have local and state stories on the front page. For example, the headline for the Tribune today was, "Pension deal done." The story was a pension overhaul bill that passed through the Illinois House. Just underneath the main story, a little headline read, "Obama renews push on health law." This story appeared on page 17, in the Nation and World section. Meanwhile, as I watched CNN Newsroom, they had a report that Obama was going back on the offensive with his healthcare bill, after all the scrutiny of the online issues from the past weeks. CNN reported that a huge wave of people have started to sign up in the first few days of December, and that Obama supporters are hopeful that trend will continue. Obama even joked over the matter as he spoke publicly saying, "A lot of people call this bill Obama Care, and it's true, I do care." You will never get that up to the minute news in the newspaper.

The Chicago Tribune does offer advantages when it comes to reporting on different stories. Those advantages are perspective and depth. Sometimes the up to the second reporting on CNN can lead to misjudgments and inaccurate speculation. The newspapers tend to report information that is 100% concrete. There is also a greater amount of depth to the stories that are written in the paper. With the extra time and perspective gained by the writers, they often are able to give more clarity to the stories they are reporting on. I found the paper to be much better at explaining and informing on political matters. TV, and specifically while I was watching CNN, it struck me that TV reporting is done on much more of a broad and big picture scale. You can get the major bullet points from TV, but they miss out on a lot of details. I also noticed that the CNN broadcast I was watching, the anchors seemed to have a very reactive approach to everything, because they too, are watching the stories come in. They have to be careful what they say, and stay very objective. The anchor seemed to operate the entire broadcast as if she was in a constant state of bewilderment. The newspaper news is a lot harder hitting and straight to the point. They are surer of the information they are reporting and therefore they don't need to tip toe around the issue.