Multiple Frames

The debate is centered around the question of whether journalism can be fulfilled through the activist approach of avoiding objectivity and instead take a subjective standpoint where they incorporate their opinion in order to be transparent and advocate change. Within any news story, there is variation between the particular frame a journalist, or in this case an “activist journalist”, can take. In order to explore these multiple frames, a recent story within the Denver Area has sparked major controversy and a series of news stories in varied styles have been written related to the matter. A painting by a DPS high school student was displayed in the Wellington Webb Municipal Building, but it sparked such controversy that the Chief of Police, the superintendent of DPS and the mayor got involved thus leading to the student’s decision to take it down.

Traditional Source: The Washington Post (Link)

The traditional source took the conventional approach of remaining objective and giving the perspective of both sides of the story; the perspective of the student and the perspective of the Denver police Department who were the most upset about the painting. The headline “Student’s artwork showing police wearing KKK hood sparks debate” depicts a neutral perspective and simply tells what the who, what, when, where and why. In addition, the author provided the frustration the painting triggered for the police department but she also incorporated a quote by the artist, Michael D’Antuono, who served as inspiration to the student’s painting that said he was very disappointed “that the student was bullied into having the piece removed”. Therefore she gave an objective story without intentionally driving the reader one way or another.

Activist Source: Police the Law Enforcement Magazine (Link)

This particular outlet however, steered clear from remaining objective and expressed their opinion on the subject matter very openly. Given the magazine’s title “Police: The Law Enforcement Magazine” lets the reader know that the audience of this magazine are law enforcement officers therefore the frame will appeal to them. The story only provides quotes from the Fraternal Order of Police where they explain their outrage about the painting but they did not provide any information in regards to the student’s reasons or motivations. Clearly this site is advocating for a positive interpretation of contemporary police officers and do not want them to be depicted in a generalized, negative depiction.

Other Source: Westword (Link)

Westword, however has an adequate balance between writing this story in both a professional matter but also incorporates language that gives them the leverage to be transparent in their writing. The headline “KKK cop stirs sh*tstorm, student artist asks that it be taken down” has language with a hint of humor to highlight the major controversy a painting by a tenth grader who had no idea the amount of backlash she would face. 

Germany's 'Anti' Movement

The Patriot Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA) is a xenophobic, specifically anti-Muslim grassroots movement that was formed in Germany early 2014. The group protests the national policies of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open immigration policy in Germany, as well as the free movement of people, jobs and goods with the European Union. There are many different domestic and international sources covering this evolving phenomenon.

One news source that has been covering the events is Open Europe, a British blog that reports only on European news. The format of the blog includes a short summary by an expert on the topic, followed by a large open comments section. In regards to PEGIDA, Open Europe frames the discussion around terrorist events like the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, which the blog suggest are catalysts for more aggressive rhetoric in Germany. In particular, the theme of the comments section notes that Germans are increasingly favouring more conservative, yet extreme, political parties like Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which supports PEGIDA’s ‘anti’ objective.

A second example is an article in RT that covered March protests of pro-immigration policy in Berlin. The body of the article framed the debate around the effectiveness of current Chancellor Merkel, noting that her popularity is in significant decline. The text suggests that reasons for her increased dislike are the results of bans on some demonstrations, continued multicultural efforts, and unwillingness to engage in public debate about Germany’s cultural question. The article also has two links to videos of January PEGIDA protests in the eastern Germany. One video shows the peaceful movement of thousands of citizens through the streets of snowy Dresden at night. The frame use here is anti-violent, but also highlights solidarity with the proliferation of ‘silent’ populist movements across Europe. The other video chronicles a protest in Leipzig where demonstrators act rudely and roughly to authorities. This video juxtaposes the aggressiveness of protestors with the video’s title, “Herzlichkeit,” which means warmth and generosity. The contrasting frames in these videos highlights both PEGIDA’s external reputation of high brutalisation, as well as their internal ‘bliss.’

A third example comes from the German newspaper Die Welt, which frames the anti-immigration question as one related to the upcoming German elections. The article contends that the negative sentiment surrounding Merkel and public demands and demonstrations for change in the German cultural dynamic have given legitimacy to right-wing party leader of the AfD, Frauke Petry. Interestingly for a Germany newspaper, Die Welt notes that while several of Petry’s claims are true – Germany’s unresolved migration question, prominent EU power and responsibilities, etc. – her platform draws scary similarities to the Nazi era. This is uncharacteristic of a country that rarely speaks about their past. The frame here is a careful balance between subjectivity and objectivity, particularly noted in the style of writing and verb tense of the article – the use of “sei” creates a distance between the reporter and their story in the German language. I think Die Welt wants to caution of a repeat of history, which also noting the importance of addressing the burdening extremism and immigration questions.

Framing Assignment Claire Whitnah

          The fate of Cherelle Baldwin is being challenged as she faces trial for the murder of her ex-boyfriend. Democracy Now, an independent activist news outlet, features her story on the front page of the website as the first breaking news story. A still from a video of Baldwin filled with tears in her eyes is positioned directly to the left of the title reading “The Price of Fighting Back: How Woman Faces 60 Years in Prison for the Death of Her Abusive Ex.” Instantly, the story is framed by the image of Baldwin crying evoking sympathy from the reader while the title continues to push the story as a “the price” of her actions. The article uses kind language when referring to Baldwin first presenting the court documents where her boyfriend had threatened and abused her. Then, the article mentions the murder and the case directly at hand. Never does not directly quote the police affidavits, instead it refers to them with dramatic language like how Brown was “choking her with his belt.” The only use of outside information comes from the mention of a recent article by Victoria Law as the paragraph ends with the title of the piece: “"Facing Years in Prison for Fleeing Abuse: Cherelle Baldwin’s Story is Far from Unique." Lastly, the story ends dramatically with the inclusion of a transcript from an interview Democracy Now conducted with Baldwin’s mother, Cynthia Long, and Victoria Law. In the transcript, the questions Democracy now ask are mostly general like tell us about the case or what was the time frame until the interviewer mentions the current climate of the prosecution after the George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin cases. This framing structure further shifts the narrative as placing Baldwin in a more favorable light as a victim of the criminal justice system.

            In stark contrast, NBC Connecticut, reported the story as “Woman Killed Boyfriend With Car: Cops” Directly under this title, is a Baldwin’s mugshot. Using the image of the mugshot frames the story and Baldwin as the direct perpetrator, guilty on all counts. The article additionally includes a subheading, “Cherelle Baldwin is accused of crushing Jefferey Brown against a cinder-block wall.” The position of this sentence begins with the direct case with harsh language like “crushing” and “cinder-block wall.” The title could have read, “Baldwin is accused of killing Brown,” but using the word crushing pushing the narrative to paint Baldwin in a negative light. The article walks through the logistics of the case, but in-between paragraphs is an ad-like break that states “Famous Mug Shots,” where when clicked opens a gallery of mug shots of famous criminals. The popout seems unrelated, however it continues to add to this negative frame constructured around Baldwin as criminal. The article is broken into short and conscience paragraphs, some only one sentence long like “Baldwin is being held on $1 million bond and is due in court on July 16” adding a sense of drama to her case and her actions.

            The Huffington Post reports the story as “Woman On Trial In Ex-Boyfriend’s Murder Testifies He Was ‘Controlling, Abusive.’” Under the title is again an image of Baldwin, but instead of a mugshot, it is a selfie from Baldwin’s personal Instagram account. The smiling happy image is of Baldwin compliments the first sentence of the piece: “Cherelle Baldwin held back tears Tuesday as she told a jury how her ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Brown whipped her with his belt and then wrapped it around her neck as her 19-month-old son cried nearby.” Immediately, the ethos of the language strongly favors Baldwin as she “holds back tears” with her “19-month-old son.” Baldwin here and in the Democracy Now piece is not framed as a murderer, she is framed as a victim. The Huffington Post piece uses Baldwin as a source quoting from her testimony saying “All I could think about was the baby.” Again, the journalists could have quoted any part of the testimony, but they chose that specific line to contribute to their composed narrative. Unlike the previous two articles, the end lists the journalist responsible for the piece and then a continued statement that she will follow the story and asks for “Tips?” and Feedback?” The three different sources report the event as tragedy, but whose tragedy is what is framed.  

Links to articles:

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/31/the_price_of_fighting_back_how

http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/Woman-Killed-Boyfriend-With-Car-Cops-210901711.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cherelle-baldwin-murder-trial_us_56f1b0f7e4b02c402f659c84

Framing Assignment-Alec Finley

Source 1-ESPN: http://espn.go.com/espnw/sports/article/15102506/women-national-team-files-wage-discrimination-action-vs-us-soccer-federation

Source 2-Slant News: https://www.slantnews.com/story/2016-03-31-womens-world-cup-stars-file-federal-complaint-alleging-wage-discrimination

Source 3-USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/soccer/2016/03/31/us-women-soccer-wage-discrimination-carli-lloyd-alex-morgan/82460844/

The story I chose to compare and focus on is how five members of the United States women’s national soccer team are filing a wage discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The women say that despite generating over $20 million more in revenue than the men’s national team they are still paid four-times less. I first looked at this story using the ESPN’s news website, and what I noticed immediately is that the story seemed like it was framed in a way in which the reader is given just the facts, with no opinions or bias by the reporter. The women’s argument is presented as well as the U.S. Soccer Federation’s argument, and there are numbers given about how much the women earn for winning twenty games and how much more the men would earn for winning the same amount of games. Women players are quoted talking about the inequity and need for the team that is more successful (the women’s team) to receive the same treatment and benefits of the men’s team, who hardly wins at all and “get paid more to just show up” according to Hope Solo.

            The ESPN article had to adhere to journalistic standards regarding objectivity, especially because it is part of a news outlet that might be the most popular sports news outlet in the world. This is why the language was professional, the form was more oriented towards presenting only the facts rather than the reporter’s opinions, and sources from both sides of the argument, as well as beyond the argument were used. The second source I used to examine the story and the way it is framed was the activist journalism source The Slant that utilizes use-submitted content and articles. From the opening sentence I knew this article was going to be more opinionated and slanted towards one side, and it definitely felt like it was biased towards the U.S. women’s national team and women’s right. This is not a bad thing, who wouldn’t support the same things? But the framing of the story is definitely much different because of this.

            The Slant article starts with “More American women joined the fight against gendered pay discrimination…” and then proceeds to explain the lawsuit brought forth by the five individuals on the U.S. women’s national team. The article also says the phrase “The gendered pay gap has long plagued the sports world—as it has every other professional environment…” which is another instance where it has clear opinions towards the matter at hand, which is gender equality. The argument of the other side is presented in a bigoted manner wherein the only quote given from a person on the opposing side just sounds like the individual is saying women simply are not as good at sports as men, and many reasons are given for why the women’s team should be given pay raises, i.e. they win more games, they won the most recent world cup, have more fans, etc., but does not really present any evidence for why the other side believes they should not. The fact that this news outlet relies on user content is why the subjective, opinionated approach is acceptable and even presented, but the sources are much less prevalent and only a couple players are quoted.

            The final source I used to examine the framing of the U.S. National Team’s lawsuit was USA Today. The story once again had a much more professional feel, with a definite objectivity being utilized by the reporter, but one could still notice a trace of bias or opinion. The article first named all five women taking action, calling them “standout players,” and then proceeds to use several quotes in which the speaker is saying that it is “about time” that this occurred or even one individual saying that “This is one of the strongest cases of gender discrimination I have ever seen.” The women are portrayed as the side that is doing the right thing, while no other argument or opinion is discussed in the article. Sources from the article are also very professional, but also only sources who agree with the women and/or are on their side, such as their lawyer or even Hope Solo, the women’s national team’s goalie. The focus of the piece stays on the plight of the women and their fight, which is not necessarily biased in any way considering that most people agree with gender equality, but it frames the story in a way in which the women seem like the obviously correct side, and no other sides, arguments, or opinions should even be considered.   

Discussion 1: Trump rally coverage biases

SOURCE 1:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/12/politics/donald-trump-protests/

“Trump ends wild day on campaign trail by calling for protesters' arrests”

SOURCE 2:

https://twitter.com/stokith/status/708830792550494208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

“As you can see, we were far from what happened and peaceful and lawful and he still walked up to spray us”

SOURCE 3:

http://fox61.com/2016/03/12/trump-supporters-protesters-clash-after-chicago-rally-postponed/

“Trump blames Sanders supporters for Chicago unrest; protester tries to rush stage”

 

The CNN article seemed to have more of a bias towards democrats since the framing and quotes used by Trump sounded more threatening in the context the article provided. Quotes like “I'll file whatever charges you want. If they want to do this ... we're going to go strongly for your arrests", as well as saying that arresting these protesters would "ruin the rest of their lives" by giving them a "big arrest mark”. After these statements are made the article refers to a Tweet made by a man named Chris, who called out the Kansas City  Police department for pepper spraying peaceful protestors with a provided video. Twitter is a popular media outlet for activists seeking change.

In this case, even though Chris is not a very active member of the activist media world, on this day he was one and stated his thoughts by framing the police department as the people to blame. However, it is obvious that he is not a supporter of Trump and is perhaps also upset by the fact that police were somehow manipulated by Trump since he made those statements in the beginning of the day on how he demanded police to arrest protestors.

The Fox article however is much more biased towards republicans by only highlighting what negative things Trump had to say about Bernie Sanders and his “people”. Each quote pulled by the author of this article made Bernie out to be a communist who couldn’t control his supporters let alone a country. The reference to Bernie being a communist was also largely belittling, referring to him as the worlds “communist friend”, all being said with heavy sarcasm.

 

Trump Wisconsin Poll: Three Perspectives

Signs of Wisconsin Backlash Against Donald Trump, Who Trails in Poll

The New York Times gives the facts, with minimal bias, like most of their stories. In Wisconsin, Cruz leads the party’s polls with about a 10% lead before the primaries on Tuesday. The journalist of the article, Trip Gabriel, states, “If Mr. Trump is dealt a setback in the Wisconsin primary, including a potential sweep by Mr. Cruz of all 42 delegates,” said Gabriel.  “It would be his most prominent reversal since his second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses in February.” This opens up some of Trump’s rarely-seen vulnerability before he moves on to the other regions for the primaries. Gabriel goes on to talk about the uglier side of Trump’s campaign, as well as some backlash but also notes the advantages and positives that Trump has currently shown in the debate. While it is hard to write a completely unbiased article, The New York Times seems to get as close as they can.

Trump Is Collapsing in Wisconsin

Meanwhile, on the online news source, Slate, bias tends to be a bit more present. The article discusses the same event that the The New York Times does but does it in a manner that clearly shows distaste towards Trump. Journalist, Jim Newall, subtly, yet surely, details Trump’s slow falling behind Cruz. Newall says, “One reason that Trump may be struggling in Wisconsin is that likely voters in Wisconsin despise him.” This appears to be more of an opinion that a cold-hard fact, and despise is strong word. Even more so, Newall says earlier in his piece, he describes Trump’s decline as, “his overall favorability rating dives from pretty terrible to comically toxic,” clearly depicting a dislike towards Trump. Though the title is only slightly different than that of The New York Times, it once again subtly shows bias.

This Embarrassing Interview Signals Donald Trump May Be In Trouble In Wisconsin

What appears to be even more biased - and doesn’t even attempt to hide it - is an article written by Alice Ollstein on the online activist news source, Think Progress. The title of the article alone is a dead giveaway of the journalist’s standpoint, and shows the readers that while we may be reading news, we will inherently be getting an opinion with it as well. Like the two previously mentioned articles from The New York Times and Slate, the topic remains the same, while delivery wildly varies. This article does a good job at incorporating pure facts and media, like tweets and actual audio from the interview, yet almost counteracts it with the writers strong and present opinion.

DJ Callahan's framing analysis

Coverage of the shooting of Daniel Shaver in Arizona at the beginning of the year.

USA Today:

In USA Today's recap article covering the shooting in an Arizona La Quinta Inn, the really put a lot of emphasis on the family's involvement after his death and made a point to include several pictures and even a sideshow of Shaver and his kids. They also neglected to mention his possession of pellet guns in the room until one sentence at the very end. This is obviously an attempt to downplay any police justification there may be. They drew attention away from Shaver being intoxicated in a similar fashion.

PhotographyIsNotACrime.com:

This is an activist site centered around documenting scrupulous police actions. In their article, they included digital copies of past reports regarding the officer in question along with other public records about him. Throughout the article, the author rails on police and government officials for not doing enough, yet does not mention what they had done to prevent this from happening. The article also mentions that the officer killed Shaver with an Armalite AR-15 when a quick skim of the Armalite website reveals that they don't even sell an AR-15, let alone manufacture any.

Fox 4 Arizona:

I found this article to be the best presentation of the story, but it still has some framing issues. The author mentions right away that Shaver had a pellet gun and even includes WHY he did, which was for his job as an exterminator. Also, the story included a play-by-play of the recorded events and reinforced that the officers were very lenient with Shaver, but included no sources for this information. They also made an effort to mention multiple times that Shaver was resisting, which seems to be a matter of opinion as I read more stories.

Recent studies regarding sea level rise framing

Sea level rise

Sea level rise has been an issue in the media for a long time. Recently though, a study came out saying that scientists believe that by the end of the century, the ice melt from Antarctica alone could cause levels to rise by three meters (almost 50 feet). I chose to examine a couple of different articles regarding these new findings.

            The first source I examined was CNN.com. Their article was exactly as I expected. The top was a video where a man in a suit with white hair told us about how much trouble we are in and what major cities and ports on the eastern United States would be under water if things do not change. Moving on from there, the article was jammed with facts and numbers. Basically giving us all of the statistics from the research done with no fluff at all.

            The second source I looked at was the online publishing platform Medium.com. This is a site where anybody with an account (free) can write an article about anything they want to. I found an article there by Nina Burleigh, who traveled to Antarctica on assignment with Newsweek. Her article on Medium was drastically different from the article on CNN. Hers was much more of a cautionary story. She talks about her thoughts while she was flying over the lights of coastal cities at night, and her fears for what the future might hold. She had many of the same facts that the CNN article used, however she had much more fluff and opinion in hers. The only image in the article is of the George Washington Bridge and New York City, both of could be destroyed if sea levels rise as much as they are predicted to.

            The final article I looked at was one posted by National Geographic. Their article started with a picture of somebody wading through waist deep water in the middle of the street in a city. This article is somewhere in-between the other two. Although they do not necessarily display their feelings, they do fluff their story more than CNN did. The first part of the story is all of the facts that recently came to light with the study done. After that though, they dive into what we can do and whether or not it is too late for us to reverse the effects of what we have done to the earth over the last century. Overall, the tone of this piece is not necessarily as cold and serious as the CNN article, however it is not as much of a story or personal narrative as Burleigh’s work on Medium.com.