PHIL 447 CNN And FOX News

VS I chose to view CNN and Fox news to investigate the difference between how they relay information to the public. I have read that CNN publishes real news and that Fox is just an informational entertainment station filled with opinions about the news. Immediately it is seen that CNN is very detailed in their broadcasts. Upon watching several stories from both channels, I have found that they basically convey the same exact news stories, just in different ways. CNN was only a 30 minute segment but they thoroughly covered the most important world events. Fox News was an hour long segment and briefed the world news events. This is understandable since Fox news is a local station, they had to spend a majority of the air time on local news. Both stations do however relay the news in a bias manner.

For example, both channels discussed the recent Teacher strike in Chicago. CNN spent about 4 or 5 minutes on the story stating that the teachers have come to an agreement and the children will be able to return to school on Wednesday. A 2 hour meeting with about 800 union officers and delegates concluded with a contractual agreement which would need to be ratified by the teachers and support staff and union members. The Chicago Mayor Emanuel was pleased with the results stating that it was an honest compromise. The students will suffer with a longer school day but they will be returning to school, which in turn will allow the parents and care givers to return to work. The coverage of this story on Fox news was minimal, lasting about 2 minutes. It was just brief details stating that the teachers and union members had reached and agreement and that the students would be returning to school after missing a full 7 days of class. Also, a topic of the news that was presented on both channels was the horrible situation in Afghanistan. CNN had an extensive small segment on the things that were transpiring as well as a short interview with some of the people in Afghanistan. The segment lasted about 5 minutes on CNN it was stated that the U.S. coalition is gradually transferring control to Afghan authorities but as of now the war is not over. There are still tens of thousands of American forces there dealing with what they call “green” and “blue violence. There were a total of 6 U.S troops killed last week by Afghan allies. There were also 6 jets destroyed. When this story was aired on Fox News there wasn’t that much detail. The segment only lasted about 3 minutes on Fox News. It was only stated that there were four troops killed on Sunday and 2 more killed on Friday of last week. Fox also stated that there was a raid on a military base by 15 insurgents and six jets were destroyed. Fourteen of those 15 insurgents were killed.

President Obama’s job in the White House thus far was also a topic discussed on both channels. CNN spoke on this topic for about 9 minutes and commented on how the President is quickly making progress towards recovering the U.S., and has a big agenda for the future already planned compared with past presidents. The news reporter described this facet as “breath taking” and “stunning.” Fox news discussed the president and the upcoming election for about 5 minutes, and as could be expected, completely had the opposite view on this. They maintained that the President is taking on way too many different tasks at once per his quote, and that it is absolutely crazy for him to think he will get everything completed in two terms should he be re-elected. The news reporter said that he should stop misleading the American people and pick one or two big issues to cover in his agenda, and just maybe he will be able to address those in a believable manner. Fox News also spoke of the uproar that comments made by Romney about “47% of Americans being dependent upon the government backing the President” No comments were made about this video on CNN. I have never actually watched various news channels like this. I usually catch the local news on Fox and then the world news on ABC. I enjoyed the CNN broadcast. If was much more informative and it not only covered the large world stories but it touched on some of the smaller things happening in the world as well.