Saturday, 10 February 2018

P2- WikiNews vs CBS: US Embassy





I have found the same news story in two different online newspapers, however the name of the outlet isn’t the only difference, with WikiNews being written by the general public (meaning it is citizen journalism) and CBS News being written by professionals. The stories I have chosen are both about the US Embassy moving from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem due to President Trump recognising it as Israel’s’ true capital. 

Both have very similar and unbiased headlines, with no kind of opinion attached. For example, WikiNews just states that "Pence speaks to Israeli Knesset" and CBS reads "Trump speeds up move". However they do differ. Within the article, CBS expands more about the situation, talking about more than just what had motivated them to make the article. They expand by mentioning that "Pence is scheduled to depart for a Middle East trip", furthering the readers knowledge of the recent evens that are about to take place. They do this because they can assume that their audience of C1 and C2 will be interested and will want to know more, especially if they've already clicked an article of this subject. Whereas WikiNews’ article consisted of mainly quotes with very little expansion on them, showing possibly a lack of journalistic inexperience. For example, the main body of the article consisted of two large paragraphs that were all quote and no own words from the writer. This is largely due to the fact that anyone can submit articles to WikiNews rather than having to be a professional (the way in which CBS require articles to be written).

WikiNews doesn’t show favour to any side of the situation making the whole article unbiased. Even though CBS is mostly the same (with both articles mostly just stating what has happened), they do describe Trumps decision to move the embassy as “abrupt”. Abrupt means a quick change and can imply that the change has been done so suddenly that it is rude. Here CBS may be implying that Trumps decision could a rude one, in a sense disagreeing with the actions he is taking. This shows a slight bias against Trump, this is a logical move as CBS swings left politically. Therefore they target most of their news at those with similar beliefs to agree with them.



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