Welcome...and initial guidelines...

This blog will be used in the spring of 2008 by 80+ students at Drexel University to investigate the effects of Iraq on culture and the reverse. Our goal will be to better understand why the US is in Iraq, and to question whether literature can help us on this journey.

Weekly plans and other materials will always be posted in Vista, not this blog. So go to Bb Vista to get the discussion prompts and other instructions.

I intend this blog to manage our discussions and track our collective investigation.

You should have received an email from me inviting you to become a contributor to this blog. The email was sent Monday afternoon to your official Drexel email address.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Fox vs CNN

After reading two different news articles surrounding the war in Iraq, finding differences between the two sources was a relatively easy job. The CNN article (which focused on an Iran mosque explosion that killed 12 people and wounded 200) was rather informative and relied heavily on facts as the basis for its content. One the other hand, the Fox article (which described an explosion that killed 15 people in Baghdad) contained a plethora of unnecessary fluff. For example, in the Fox article, much was described about other events that happened in Iraq and what the US military is doing to mend the situation. After being exposed to many media sources over the years, I can verify the general consensus that Fox news is typically biased in favor of the Republican view. The CNN article had very little fluff and was rather concise when compared to Fox's. Generally, CNN is considered a fairly good news source as they are known for being the most unbiased out of many other television news networks. After comparing reading through these two articles, I can verify this assumption.
Overall, I felt as if the main goal of the Fox Article was to establish the idea that chaos is occurring in Iraq. This may or may not be true, however, they are making it clear that violence is extremely rampant throughout the nation by rambling about other events in Iraq. It seemed as if CNN's purpose was to simply inform the reader of the particular event, and nothing else. I am rather confident that others will find this analysis to be true when they read through the articles. Overall, however, I am in a state of discomfort knowing that all news isn't necessarily 100% reputable. Completing this assignment reinforces the importance of being exposed to multiple news sources as it is important to develop your own opinion, and not anyone else's.

Links:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,331310,00.html?sPage=fnc/world/iraq
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/04/13/iran.explosion/index.html#cnnSTCText

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