The Acrid Blog

Our first blog assignment related to the news. We were to take a look, over the course of a week, at the headline news stories featured on three of the top news sources in the world. The three sources specifically are the following: Al Jazeera, The Guardian, and FOX News.

After watching a couple stories progress over the course of a week, I decided to focus primarily the stories involving Israel’s blockade against Hamas in Gaza, as well as snippets mentioning the United States to get an idea of how we were viewed in each news source. I gained the following results about each news organization.

Al Jazeera – US shown in biased manner, however it was very subtle, and the negative bias seemed only to be concerned with our relationship to Iraq and Israel and current situations in both regions of the Middle East. Israel seems to be represented in a fair sense however most of the stories are focusing more on its actions being negative. The country of Iran, as well as regimes such as Hezbollah and Hamas, seemed to have been given more of a voice than other organizations. Most news not centered in Middle East revolved around regional events. Any mention of other nations seemed to be kept fairly neutral. Overall, Al Jazeera seemed to have an unbiased opinion of events.

The Guardian – A story on Iraq was written showing that the US was not to blame for the insurgency problems being faced, that even the British Prime Minister underestimated what would happen. The US was displayed in a neutral manner in this instance. In another story related to the Gaza situation, Israel is being presented neutrally as well, the article pointing out both what is being said and what fact shows backing up Israel’s responses to Hamas’ accusations. Out of the articles I read in depth, the viewpoint seemed to be kept fairly neutral. Many other stories on The Guardian had to do with US politics and different stories relating to Caucus/Primary results and candidates.

FOX News – Sticking mainly to the same story on the Gaza situation leads to different views on the whole situation. Much more of the situation is presented with a positive reflection on Israel, with the group Hamas being displayed in a negative light. The article on FOX also highlighted much of the bias towards Israel that is prevalent throughout the Middle Eastern region.

Till next time,

-God Bless-

Acrid