Compare CNN and ABC news coverage of Donald Trump’s tax denial

Question

Traditional Journalism

Do both stores use a traditional journalistic perspective to present the story? Explain your answer.

Are the sources used in the stories relevant or reliable? Why or why not?

Is the message of the story the same as the message expressed by each medium? What is the message of each story?

Is there a story that makes you believe more than the other? Explain.

As stated in your handbook, honesty, neutrality, and accuracy are the three criteria for determining information quality. Does every story have all three? Does a story have more or less one of the three qualities? What prompted you to identify this?

Answer

A joint CNN and ABC report is selected here; it is Donald Trump’s tax accusations and Trump’s justification in response to the New York Times (New York Times, 2020). The script of the two short stories is different but the concept is the same.

The concept of traditional journalism is unbiased and dependent on evidence to support reporting. The role of a journalist in traditional journalism is completely out of the box to portray the positive side (Barnes, 2016). This is a Trump tax story, ABC and CNN have been unbiased despite knowing that Donald Trump is President, they represent real scenarios of unpaid taxes. Therefore, it is easy to say that both news agencies follow the concept of traditional journalism.

In the story above, CNN and ABC provided news feeds after each story; both use The New York Times as their source of information. The New York Times is the highest-rated new newspaper in the United States and can therefore be considered a reliable source of news (Hicks, 2018).

ABC News described the story in a variety of styles; they refer to the words of Donald Trump Jr. and Donald Trump’s secretary in the same way. However, numbers and numbers appear the same in both stories, and the message they convey about taxes, even if you are the tax-paying president, cannot be avoided. Both news organizations follow basic journalistic principles and represent Donald Trump’s tax concerns with the necessary resources; it is a difficult choice to determine which is the most reliable. However, ABC News in the article provided a selective image of Trump, taken by The New York Times at a press conference, and the exact words of Donald Trump Jr. “This is ridiculous. My father paid ten million dollars in taxes” (Phelps, 2020). A story with pictures is more compelling to believe (EBSCO Post, 2017).

Source of use

The basic criteria for judging a story is to determine its truthfulness, neutrality and accuracy. And the idea of ​​objectivity must be present in the story to avoid any perception (Potter, 2016). In terms of neutrality, the two stories are almost equal, CNN and ABC news both provide Donald Trump’s data and tax records using reliable sources and are unbiased in highlighting issues related to Donald Trump. president. In terms of accuracy, CNN has provided a little more information about Trump’s business. However, ABC used pictures and sayings to reinforce the story. Thus, with numbers, data, images and statements, the quality of both stories can be determined. In the story above, the purpose of ABC and CNN was to introduce the public to the Trump tax story. Despite the bias, CNN and ABC have given the exact tax figure. Knowing that Trump is a famous businessman and president of the country, some of them may be biased from a business perspective, however, they did fair press and portrayed the true story.

Furthermore, the aim of both media is not to target Trump but to highlight tax concerns. So the basics of journalism follow. If any of the stories above are biased, they may have overlooked the basic rules of journalism, honesty, neutrality, and accuracy. My suggestion to the aforementioned news agencies is to make an objective story that follows journalistic ethics. And the most important thing for neutral reporting is to follow the concept of objectivity and stay out of the box, to avoid perception (Potter, 2016).

Racial prejudice is thinking about a particular type, culture, group of people, society, and nationality. Similarly, a gender-specific behavior or attitude is considered a gender stereotype (Rogers & Meltzoff, 2017). Based on the above criteria, the news is free of gender and race biases.

As analyzed above, the story seems objective and factual, however, it completely depends on the context and content of how people understand it. CNN and ABC stories describe the situation of a president who was featured in the news for not paying his federal taxes in full. The plot is similar but both have different backgrounds and plots. CNN focuses more on President Trump’s wealth and businesses (Toh, 2020). Considering that the headlines of news content seem to be effectively categorized. An important thing should have been in the photo of Donald Trump at the press conference to attract more readers (Rao, 2019).

ABC’s report is Trump’s vindication to the New York Times by including tax allegation. They show the content of Trump and his family’s justification, and provide factual statements made to the New York Times, with a credible image. However, the story may contain more details about Donald Trump’s assets and businesses, so that the reader has knowledge of Trump’s wealth, which in turn can educate the reader to understand. about the current situation and tax concerns. A story must be completed for the audience to understand its meaning (Potter, 2016).

People understand history according to their preferences and perceptions; There can be different interpretations of a story. It is important to frame the report in the interest of the public. In some cases, if the news or story is unique and uninteresting to the audience, it should be well presented and contain sufficient details without bias. There are certain expectations of the public; not meeting them can have a negative impact on the news (University of Pittsburg, 2020).

Reference

Barnes, C. (2016). Citizen Journalism vs. Traditional Journalism: A Case for Collaboration. Caribbean Quarterly , 58 (3), 16-27.

EBSCO Post. (2017, Nov). Seeing is Believing – The Benefits of Picture Books for Building Reading Skills. Retrieved Sep 2020, from EBSCO Post: https://www.ebsco.com/blog/article/seeing-is-believing-the-benefits-of-picture-books-for-building-reading-skil

Hicks, R. (2018, Dec). How the New York Times maintains its credibility. Retrieved Sep 2020, from Quill: https://www.quillmag.com/2018/12/15/how-the-new-york-times-maintains-its-credibility/

New York Times. (2020, Sep). Long-concealed records show trump’s chronic losses and years of tax avoidance. Retrieved Sep 2020, from New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html

Phelps, J. (2020, Sep). Trump, White House blend denials, justifications in reaction to New York Times story on his taxes. Retrieved Sep 2020, from ABC News: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-white-house-blend-denials-justifications-reaction-york/story?id=73291795&cid=clicksource_4380645_4_three_posts_card_image

Potter, W. (2016). Media Literacy (8th ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.

Rao, M. (2019, Jan). The power of storytelling: how to use stories to differentiate, connect, and influence. Retrieved Sep 2020, from Your Story: https://yourstory.com/2019/01/power-storytelling-use-stories-differentiate-connect-influence

Rogers, L. O., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2017). Is gender more important and meaningful than race? An analysis of racial and gender identity among Black, White, and mixed-race children. American Psychological Association , 23 (3), 323-334.

Toh, M. (2020, Sep). Retrieved Sep 2020, from CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/28/business/trump-business-nyt-report/index.html

University Of Pittsburg. (2020). Audience Analysis. Retrieved Sep 2020, from University Of Pittsburg: https://www.comm.pitt.edu/oral-comm-lab/audience-analysis