CNN

A. Why CNN?

The first country whose news organization’s presentation regarding this issue that I have chosen to examine is The United States. Choosing the U.S to be one of the countries to do my research upon for this project, for me, is a no-brainer for several reasons- The U.S is the biggest and most influential country in the world, therefore, I would choose The U.S as one of the countries to do my research on, regardless of the issue I am researching on. Another reason, is because the issue that I have chosen is a tragedy that has happened in the U.S, but was caused by another country- so, it will be interesting to see how a news organization from this country go about this issue in their news presentation. There are a lot of media outlets or news organizations that I could choose from in the United States- but, I have chosen to do this research on CNN.

CNN, or Cable News Network is a U.S cable news channel that was found in 1980 by American media mogul and philanthropist Ted Turner. It is owned by the Turner Broadcasting System, Inc which is a part of the Time Warner Company. When it was launched, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States.

The reason that I have chosen CNN from the United States to do this project on is because CNN is one of the few news organizations that over the years I have found to be reliable and has a good overall credibility as a media outlet. I also feel like CNN has been able to represent the United States’ press system, which is the Social Responsibility Press System, to the best of its ability.

B. Analysis

From what I have seen after observing the CNN online website and watching a handful videos of news reports in regards to this issue, I have gathered a few things that stick out the most. The first one, is that there is over a thousand articles, news reports, videos, and stories on the BP oil spill issue. Starting from when the oil spill has not even happened yet and was still only an explosion and it still hadn’t been determined what was actually happening yet, and was thought to be a terrorism attack. That shows how much CNN wants to be as much on top of this issue as possible, by going as far as reporting something that they are not really sure about. From that point on, CNN kept on top of every single thing that happens regarding the oil spill. They are always updating their audience on everything that is going on and rarely misses it when something changes- even up until recent dates.

By reading a few stories, articles, and news reports that I came across on the CNN archives regarding this issue, one thing really stood out for me. There is one thing that is always somewhat there at every item. That one thing is how not only are they very detailed in elaborating significant moments, they are also always emphasizing on the damages that the tragedy has caused. Even though they are doing it in a very subtle way, it really comes across especially after reading a few articles on the issue in a row. Maybe if I were to be reading those articles as regular news that I read in different days, it probably would not have come across as clearly. But after reading a few of those articles, it became clear that they want to get a certain point across- which is that this tragedy is a very unfortunate tragedy and has done a massive amount of damages. It also seems like they really want their readers to comprehend the magnitude of this tragedy- especially ecologically- so that more people can be aware of what is actually happening, without being completely blatant by actually writing an article about how much this situation suck. It shows that they want to get their point across without losing their reputation as being the news organization that does not take sides and is always very open to different points of views.