Get Your Facts Right, It's Not That Difficult!

Saturday October 23rd 2010 President Barack Obama spoke in the crowded field house at the U of M campaigning for Mark Dayton. It was packed with 8,500 people who waited in line for hours to get a chance to see the president of the United States speak. I unfortunately did not get the chance to be a part of the group who saw Obama, but I did find some interesting representations of his speech.
I have chosen to analyze both the New York Times and Fox News representations of Obama’s speech. The New York Times tends to lean more towards a liberal view point, and Fox News leans towards the more conservative point of view. I thought it was interesting how both the NYT and Fox News representation of Obama’s speech were similar, but both projections of the event were quite different. Both news articles recap of Obama’s speech (as far as the atmosphere and description of it) are pretty much the same but there are a few things are conflicting; for example, the NYT states that “Unlike many other races across the country where polls show Republicans with an edge, in Minnesota, Mr. Dayton, a former United States senator, is polling ahead of Tom Emmer, a Republican, and Tom Horner of the Independence Party”. In the Fox news representation it states the exact opposite, “Obama's campaign blitz ends Saturday at a Minneapolis rally for gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton. The former U.S. senator is facing a challenge from Republican Tom Emmer”. This is very important because in these two articles it is easy to tell which was written by a republican and which was written by a democratic supporter. The NYT says that Dayton is ahead of Tom Emmer and Fox News says Dayton faces a challenge from Tom Emmer. Well which one is it? Dayton is either ahead in the poles, or he is not.
This is a perfect example of what we have been talking about in class. That is, how difficult it is to get an unbiased representation of history. No matter what, whoever writes a history book or political article, it will always be biased towards the author’s viewpoint.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/us/politics/24rally.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Obamas%20speech%20at%20the%20University%20of%20Minnesota&st=cse

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/23/obama-ending-day-campaign-swing-minneapolis-rally/