Michelle+P's+Election+Activity

After the debates (both Vice President & Presidential) watch these news stations and report how they analyze and critique the performances of the candidates. What are your general impressions (free from your own political bias)? How influential are these media outlets in convincing voters?

Watching the debates, the different news stations all gave a different spin on how the debates went. I do not have cable, so I had to look at the articles from the night right after the debate It became very clear as I examined different news sources after both the vice presidential and the presidential debates.

For instance, Fox news was very clearly slanted towards the Republican side. After the presidential debate, their article used very different verbs when talked about Obama and Romney. The Fox writer said that Obama attacked and strove to make up ground, and took pains not to repeat mistakes while he knocked Romney. In comparison, the same writer merely stated that Romney responded, replied, and said.

The CBS newscast gave a different story. I could tell that they tried hard to strive and provide equal time to both sides. They pointed out both the Republican and Democrats strengths and flaws in both the Vice and Presidential debates. After the vice presidential debate, CBS declared Biden to be the winner of the debate even though they pointed out that both the candidates had positives and negatives in their responses. I found their newscast to be much more informative and it provided a good analysis of both sides.

Overall, I think that these news/media outlets can be very convincing for voters who read into them. For someone who is impressionable and reads a Fox news story, not realizing their bias, he/she may be easily swayed towards the Republican side. In the same way, a voter who watches a CBS newscast may come away more informed about both sides and be able to make a better personal choice in the election. Also, a lot of people do not take the time to actually watch the debates. Instead, they look to news sources to tell them what happened at the debate. If they read a biased news sources that tells them that the debate went in one candidates favor, even if it did not actually go that way, those people are misinformed and their votes may similarly be skewed. It is very important to have multiple news source options and for readers to examine the biases behind each news source.