Upon researching Journalism, I was presented with two outstanding texts that I thought were very crucial towards laying the foundation for a framework that critiques Journalism followed by smaller other texts. The first source I chose was entitled, “Media Bias: How to Spot It-And How to Fight It.” The article was written by media Analyst and FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) member, Peter Hart. Hart asserts that there are three components of Journalism that “lack initiatives” when, “identifying examples of poor reporting, neglected context, and the reluctance to change status-quo notions and conventional wisdom.” I thought this was necessary for my paper and its reputability because of its definitive explanation, through three tensions, of how journalism fails to represent a topic in a just and fair manner.
My paper is focused primarily on the last aspect that Hart mentions which displays the often vague and deceptive techniques news outlets use to promote a particular agenda within America. The agenda is broken down by the familiar bipartisan divide known as Democrats and Republicans. Hart’s article is broken up into sections that identify different topics within his critique. Some of the subsections can be found to be titled as follows, “How to Read the Media, The Big Question: Why?” and “Restricting Debate on Trade and Health.” Each subsection highlights his view of that particular topic under the realm of Journalism. He supports his viewpoint through research conducted by his organization FAIR.
He immediately describes Journalism in a manner that recognizes his own bias through FAIR’s corporate bias incentives but justifies it by recognizing that their purpose is to critique Journalism. Consequently, Hart’s ability t. .e so there are no confusing aspects of my thesis let alone my argument. The reader should not misinterpret my intentions if I follow this format. Overly detailed explanations of primary ideas will only serve to help my writing, even when explaining key words and phrases that might be ambiguous.
I will be sure to use an abundance of transitional phrases and well organized topics to allow proper flow and cohesion. Then, upon engaging in an argument, I will follow the same formula but with explicitly cited commentary within each section that has a tension which will be signaled to my reader. This will avoid the more linear function of writing that dictates that an argument has to be made after all of the basic information has been presented. I believe that format can be extremely counterproductive and unappealing to the reader not to mention simplistic and inefficient.
