Article Critique

"Somali Pirates Hijack Fourth Vessel in a Week"

On CNN's website, this title caught my eye, and a very short, somewhat disjointed but nonetheless informative article followed. As far as I could tell, the story was accurate; every time a fact or believed fact was stated, it was followed by the source of the information. This article was little else but facts, mostly pertaining to the nationality of the hijacked ship's crew members, the country or origin of the ships in question, when and where the ships were taken. As there was nothing but the statement of facts, there was complete objectivity in this article; it was little more than bullet point modified into loose paragraphs.

One thing that did, however, bother me, was the disjointed way in which things were stated. In an article less than 6 paragraphs long, the phrase "the naval force said" is used 10 times, and additionally, the phrase "it said" (also referring to the British naval force) is used twice. This strikes me as a rough draft of a larger article. The bare bones are there; facts, sources and storyline, but in my opinion this article should have been given a bit more attention. If it were me in the CNN editing room, I would not have posted this story as it is now. There could have been a bit more back story toward the end of the article, bringing up the recent spike in acts of piracy off the coast of Somalia, and why geography puts so many large tankers with precious payloads in such notoriously dangerous international waters. If there wasn't time to add that much depth to the story, one would at least reread the standing article and attempt to assemble it in such a way that a single source would only need to be stated once, and delete the other nine times it is stated as a source.

Though the article stayed true to the title and simply and briefly stated the facts of the events, I feel it could have done so in a more cohesive, intelligible manner, and possibly there could have been more meat added to the story if it had been looked over more than once.

Moral Dilemma

Bias and Deception



The news media is America's primary source of political, local and international events, and as such has a responsibility to objectively provide validated facts and political statements within the full context of the situation said statements were given. It is the sole purpose of the media to relay facts to the general public; not pander to a specific constituency. All national news channels are guilty of some bias, especially when relating to political issues. MSNBC is widely known as a "leftist" news channel, while FOX news is famous for its conservative bias. Some bias is to be expected; if the target market is a more conservative group, the content will reflect that. There is a point, however, where the bias becomes larger than the events themselves, and at that point it is unacceptable. When stories are molded to fit preconceived ideas and opinions, the reporter has slipped past acceptable bias and barreled head-over-heels into public deception.