Major

Journalism

Second Major

Writing and Rhetoric

Advisor

Pantalone, John

Advisor Department

Journalism

Advisor

Johnson, Heather

Advisor Department

Writing & Rhetoric

Date

5-2022

Keywords

Media; Bias; COVID-19

Abstract

Over just the last decade, news media has changed dramatically in every way one could think of in both their methods and principles. This is extremely evident in the way different companies put together material, choose language, and choose what to report on. As an aspiring journalist, I’ve noticed all of those subtle differences and understand how reporters can get away with coverage rooted in personal/corporate bias. This became even more evident to me post-COVID as the situation quickly turned political. The overarching question I aimed to answer with this project is: Has political and cultural bias affected the coverage of the covid pandemic in the United States, and was the media effective at responding to an impactful crisis with minimal bias throughout the year 2020? To do this, I chose CNN, a company pinned as leaning left on the political spectrum, and Fox News, which many say leans right, according to several Pew Research studies and Gallup polls. I went into each organization’s online archives and compared their written articles to each other as each organization reported on significant events throughout the beginning of the pandemic up until December 2020. Based on what I found in those archives, I also compared their TV News segments to observe the difference in how they reported events. What I learned is going to help me better understand and recognize bias in the journalism industry, equipping me to be able to prevent it and advocate for more accurate and balanced reporting.

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