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BBC News, Abby Dohm.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the world’s largest broadcasting organization based out of London, England. BBC has a history of holding up their obligations to produce information for a mass audience without overt bias or criticism. My focus will be on two articles on the BBC website, Barack Obama: All US troops to leave Iraq in 2011 and Obama: Can he win the youth vote once more?
The first article, US troops to leave Iraq was written on October 21, 2011, roughly two months before the end of the year. Under the title of the article is the video feed from President Obama’s press conference regarding the pulling out of troops in Iraq. Underneath the video is the caption, “President Obama: ‘In the next two months our troops will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home.’” On the right hand side of the article there are many snippets of more news stories and links as well as commentary. The editor, Mark Mardell, has his own opinion quote, “While Republicans bicker over the choice of a candidate, President Obama is exciting his own base.” Other blocks read, “struggle for Iraq” with links of other articles of events in Iraq, covered by BBC; “The war in Iraq” with a timeline of events credited to the US Department of Defense; and finally, the article closes with a graph entitled “US troop levels in Iraq-March 2003 to August 2010.” After the article is complete, the BBC website offers “More on This Story” with links to other article related to the US troops pulling out of Iraq with special bullets for “Background and Analysis” and “Watch/listen”. Of the total 372 words in this article, 78 of them are from direct quotes. President Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh were the only three experts quoted in this article.
The second article I will look at from the BBC website, Can he win the youth vote once more? was written on November 2, 2011. On top of the headline is a black rectangular box with a photo, name, title, and two links (one to Twitter) of how to connect with the North America Editor, Mark Mardell.
Throughout the article there is text written in blue which if clicked on, will send the reader to a new website corresponding with the colored text. The first two words of this article are those blue letters, Nato Coles- a “high energy” musician.
Image two, from above, appears to the right of the article text with the caption, “President Obama campaigned with a message of hope and change in 2008”. Underneath the photo is a column entitled Republican primary race 2012 with links to other BBC news articles regarding the Republican candidates and election. The last item of bulk on the right hand of the text of the article is this photo of Nat Coles:
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With the caption “Nat Coles plays with his band in Cincinnati, Ohio”. The text of the article is broken up into three parts, the first without a bold tag line, the second: Back on track, and lastly: Feeling disillusioned. Underneath the text of the article we once again see the image, name, title, and ways to stay connect to Mark Mardell. Underneath his information is “More on This Story” with links to BBC articles witch have similar content to the article just read. The final part of the article is a “Comment” section with the invitation to “Sign in or register to comment and rate comments.” Followed by the tag line, “All posts are pre-moderated and must obey the house rules.” As of November 6th at 5pm there were 194 comments on this article.
Our media outlets seemed to be radically different; one, an international, “outsider”, reputable news organization—and the other, an American, “insider”, Men’s Magazine. Looking deeper we found further differences, a bit more subtle, the sources’ subjectivity in the matter of war, rhetorical strategies used by the authors and editors, and the overall politics behind the representation of images, advertisements, and text.
The popular society trust ‘unbiased’ News sources, like the BBC, to fact check and report reliable data so the reader does not have to. The BBC quotes experts on the US military, government, and foreign affairs in the All US troops to leave Iraq article. We, the reader believe we are receiving an unbiased and objective news story with each article put out by the BBC because of their reputation and credibilty. However BBC’s subjectivity to the war in Iraq can be found quite easily in the article, Can he win the youth vote? The ‘expert’ interviewed on pulling troops out of Iraq was “An art student, Sheida Solemani” The BBC’s reputation precedes itself, which makes many readers not think as critically of their sources as they may be of other media outlets.
Esquire is an example of one of the “other” media outlets, an organization without a reputation for unbiased journalism. Their subjectivity is easier to define; they are a Men’s magazine catering to what men like and think. The author of It’s Impossible to Leave Iraq is a ‘day in the life’ article of a solider in Iraq, currently fighting in the US Army. The bias is clear but pretty understandable; a person in combat in Iraq has a much different perspective than a person writing about combat in Iraq.
We also noticed how the links, offered by each source, took us to sites or articles that were much different and targeted at vastly different audiences. The one, of two, advertisement I saw most frequently, via a banner at the top of the screen, was for MetLife Insurance—tag line: Guarantees for the if in life. This appeals to a reader who may be cautious, who plans ahead, a middle-aged person who is beginning to think about life insurance. Any other link brought you to another BBC article or author, keeping the reader’s knowledge based limited to the BBC point of view.
Esquire was full of advertisements and links to products very unrelated to news broadcasting about the Iraq War. In order to read the text of the article I had to close down an ad for cologne, L’Homme Libre-YvesSaintLurent-Break Free. Other links were “Enter to win a stylish new wardrobe-Esquire” and “Eat like a Man Blog” which clearly is targeted for men, and suggests how ‘real’ men eat.
This brings up a question: is there a media outlet that can tell a truth without bias?
Esquire.com, The Political Blog.
Jacob Miller
This picture is presented to us at the top of the page, directly under the headline. The headline is a statement, specifically a statement that counters something we have been told and believe will happen. This sad looking picture of Barack Obama, saluting to some ambiguous person on a cloudy day, is automatically attached to the headline: as if this picture was taken directly after Obama left a meeting about what’s really going on in Iraq. The combination of the headline and this photo reveal a positive attitude towards getting the troops out of Iraq, yet it frames it as either not happening, or not as positive as we would all wish to think.
The writing of the article is structured around statements that are meant to be accepted as true. The article leads its readers through no “journey’, or connects a sequence of thoughts that makes the readers think differently about the topic. It instead, tells the reader simple statements, that are perceived as universal for all Americans and needs no evidence. For an example: “The war in Iraq was a crime based on fraud”. This sentence is in bold letters at the beginning of a paragraph, halfway through the article. The paragraph doesn’t even go on to explain how the author came up with such a statement; it simply tells the reader things that the reader already believes.
This image is an example of the advertisements that are seen directly next to the article. It has nothing to do with the author’s ideas about leaving Iraq. The ad is good, however, because Esquire’s typical audience is white, young and middle aged, upwardly mobile, heterosexual men. The advertisement is chosen out of an infinite amount of other images that could have taken this one’s place. Esquire knows who would read the articles posted. They present things that make the readers want to return to the website to read other things.
Abby and I both understand that looking at these media through the lens Chomsky’s model, the structure of how media work is brought to light.
Just like the advertisements on each website, each article was chosen out of a countless amount of other articles that could have taken its place. This means, that what is defined as “truth”, as “news worthy”, as “good” or as “bad” are all constructed, vis a vis , ideas and representations that will benefit a specific news source, i.e. financially, in terms of Public Relations, advertisements, etc. It is an example of a Free Market at play. Essentially, truth and history are defined by structural hierarchies hidden from the subjects of a Free Market.
Through looking at these different sources, we found that the structure and apparatus of “history making”, or “News Making” is controlled by the market in general. It’s true that the TV stations and Newspapers and websites are controlled by a small amount of people, however the agency of what is considered news and how it’s represented belongs to no one particularly. It seems to be quite literally the market structure pushing through old ideas and isolating its subjects from political reform.
When texts of news, such as the ones we have read and see in every day news stories, simply tell a story as something sad, happy, progressive, or even if the text seems to be “unbiased”, the reader only connects with the story through that way. If it’s unbiased they look at the story as though they should be unbiased. This becomes problematic because it stops, and almost prohibits, anything from actually happening. They frame stories in such a way that makes the event itself secondary to how it is perceived and represented. Using rhetorical strategies, such as only saying statements that are assumed to be true, and using the perspective of a person that is assumed to know best, i.e. a soldier, the reader doesn’t ask questions. Or check facts. The most important thing is that they know the news; but the News they are given isolates them from acting or wanting to act against economic and political conditions.
I thought you had a great analysis of the sources used in every facet of the article. From the advertising to the selected professionals chosen for interviews, it is always important to question these sources. BBC is a news source read across the world and is revered by many as the news source to judge others by. Recognizing the use of an Iraqi art student as the interviewee and commentator on the withdrawal of American troops for the entire country of Iraq is often overlooked by the most illustrious of readers. To constantly keep these details in mind is a difficult thing to do, but necessary if we are to realize there is no one voice that can speak for an entire country/issue. How articles are structured is always biased in the views of the author, often in ways we can surmise at and ways we could never understand. A cultural history, a personal history, and as you stated in quoting Chomsky, the sub/conscious economic incentives that interpellate writers will always be biased. I believe it is also vital to remember that the BBC writing as a British based news source has a long history and cultural make up that a reader from the U.S. would not necessarily identify with as a part of their own historical/cultural composition. Looking at BBC versus Esquire gives a completely different historical/cultural base that is identifying with what is being written. Just as the advertising you analyzed catered to these definitive audiences, so are the prose, appearance, and subject position of the article—these inclusions are just as important as the exclusions. In noting what words are included I found it interesting to look at the implied dichotomy of such simple words as bad, then implying the opposite as good, and truth, implying any thing else as lies. These words and images are loaded with implications, as any experienced writer and advertiser would know. I really enjoyed reading your analysis. It was accessible and knowledgeable!
ReplyDeleteI liked how you talked about how the market/economy and the media shapes our idea of history. It's interesting to think about how every single thing we read, hear, or watch is somehow monitored by someone trying to gain something. Whether it is money to be gained or something as simple as more subscriptions to a magazine or higher viewer ratings on a news channel, there is always an ulterior motive. In class when we talked about a picture being the most powerful tool used by the media, or anyone in general, that was certainly correct. Something as simple as one picture can completely change our views or ideas about some incident or public affair. I think that when people watch the news, they don't think about the point of view or the reasons behind why the broadcasters choose to report what they do. Overall, I liked your analysis and found it very interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to think that there is always a motive behind why and how the media is reporting the news. I liked how you analyzed where the info in the articles came from. As you said, BBC had an art student as their expert for the the article. Really BBC could have chosen any one else to be the expert and for as pretigous and popular of a media source, it could have been easy for them to get a Iraqi government official or some other high ranking Iraqi figure. Why not even a older individual who has been around long enough to have lived through the Gulf War and knows what life in Iraq has been over the past 40 years and could form a more experienced opinion. BBC chose this indivual for a reason. Great analysis!
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