Former President Donald Trump: What Are the Facts?
Trump is back in the news! Again...
What's going on this time?
Former President Donald Trump is being sued for falsifying information and committing insurance fraud as well as other offenses. These actions are thought to be conspired before, causing a big mess for Mr. Trump and his executives.
Personally, I have seen many articles circling through the media on this topic. Trump's presidency saw a lot of turbulence in regards to politics, so his name involved in anything is guaranteed to be headline news. What I found was drastically different opinions on the matter.
I found and analyzed two articles on this topic. One is from Buzzfeed News, which will serve as our leftists view. The other article is from National Review, which will be our rightest view.
Let's get into it...
I believe the titles here are very important to note. You can tell which direction the story is going based on it. The Buzzfeed article is titled, "New York's Attorney General Is Suing Donald Trump And The Trump Organization For Fraud". I would say this headline is fairly general and doesn't lean any which way. (You'll see this change in the next article).
However, once you begin reading you will see very quickly the direction of the reporters. Not necessarily in the way the reporter's wrote the story but rather in the quotes used. While reading the article, I noticed that every quote was one against Trump. Many of these quotes are from New York Attorney General Letitia James, who belongs to the Democratic party. Here is one quote to give you an idea of what I am talking about.
"Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization repeatedly and persistently manipulated the value of assets to induce banks to lend money to the Trump Organization on more favorable terms than would otherwise have been available to the company, to pay lower taxes, to satisfy continuing loan agreements, and to induce insurance companies to provide insurance coverage for higher limits and at lower premiums." -Letitia James.
Yea... doesn't look good for Trump.
The quotes used by Trump and his team seem selectively chosen to paint him in a bad light as well.
This quote was used in the article from Donald Trump Jr., "The bullshit Dem witch-hunt continues!"
Overall, I found this article to be very informative. It is filled with lots of information, a decent chunk of it unbiased, and I would recommend this article to gain easily digestible information on the pending case. With that being said, it cannot be classified as an "unbiased" based on some information, which does lean to the left.
Moving On...
In comparison to Buzzfeed's article, this one screams rightist views. Let's start with the title for clarity.
"Tish James makes a Mountain Out of the Trump Molehill".
We find the word "allegedly" in the first paragraph; really playing into the "innocent until proven guilty" mindset. Also within the first paragraph is a taunt at the New York Attorney General.
Both articles share similarities in that they offer up the same information in the first few paragraphs in order to give context for the rest of the story. In National Review's article, I noticed something different that stood out.
Reporter for the National Review Andrew McCarthy mentions that many of the defendants in the case are his children. I believe this was done intentionally to create sympathy for the former president. Oh come on, he's a family man.
"James’s civil lawsuit is best understood as “the fraud crime to end all fraud crimes, which partisan Democratic prosecutors wish they could prove . . . but can’t.” James’s bells-and-whistles press conference notwithstanding, what made the case unattractive to criminal prosecutors is blatant." (McCarthy, 2022).
This article describes the intentions of the article quite well in my opinion. Subtlety defending Trump while bashing James in the process.
I feel as though much of this story is avoiding any facts that directly make Trump look guilty. Rather, it is a mix between basic facts about what it happening and bashing on James.
To Round this all up...
The bias in both articles is quite clear, National Review in particular. However, as this case is just starting to gain traction in the news (Now that the trail is set for October), the information offered is very similar.
As the plot thickens and tension grows, I am confident more details will come to light. I have a feeling I will be revisiting this topic come October/November to review the intense findings of this case.
References
McCarthy, Andrew C. “Tish James Makes a Mountain of the Trump Molehill.” National Review, National Review, 22 Sept. 2022, https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/09/tish-james-makes-a-mountain-of-the-trump-molehill/.
Betts, Anna, and Clarissa-Jan Lim. “New York's Attorney General Is Suing Donald Trump and the Trump Organization for Fraud.” BuzzFeed News, BuzzFeed News, 21 Sept. 2022, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annabetts/trump-fraud-lawsuit-new-york.
Political Round-Up,
ReplyDeleteBiases seem to be an inescapable factor in media despite how much journalists may deny it by justifying decisions as fitting the “general criteria of newsworthiness“, as Johanna Dunaway from Mass Media and American Politics states (Dunaway). However, a bias is rarely a sole contributor's doing and can stem from news networks’ culture, sponsors, and editors (Dunaway). Biases and newsworthiness are especially interconnected when talking about such a polarizing topic as Trump. It is always interesting for me to see two completely different realities of the same event. Nonetheless, I feel like it takes a good amount of critical thinking and tolerance for the ambiguity of conflicting ideas to still be able to find informative bits of knowledge to help build and understand the situation. And thats exactly what it looks like you did!