Blog Post 6; R&R

Whitney Huston is a name that happens to be all over the place the past couple of days. If you did not know who this American singer was before Saturday February 11, 2012 I think it’s safe to say you do now. A vast majority of media forms are currently covering her “tragic” death. I put tragic in quotation marks because it is a matter of opinion. While, some news forms may promote this event as tragic, others simply cover it as another news story.

I watched a news report on Whitney Huston on two completely different network news stations to compare and contrast how different or, alike they would turn out to be. The two news stations were CNN and Aljazeera English. While there is not a sense of political bias or even international bias in either one of these stations, Aljazeera was insurmountably more biased then CNN.

CNN did a rather impressive job of using agenda setting. Where they did in fact tell us what to think about, they did not tell us how to think about it. Where the counter news network Aljazeera clearly used emotion dimension a lot. This is when feelings are created by the media message(s). Aljazeera was extremely biased in their coverage of Huston. They even created bias within our nation implying that her death hit harder in New Jersey were she was born, and Los Angeles where she died. Therefore, implying further that elsewhere in the country was not hit as hard.

Finally, CNN reported her death. Plain and simple, that is what they did. They told the public what happened, to who, when, and where. They also gave a brief overview of her life and her accomplishments. They did not, make Huston out to be somebody she wasn’t, more important or “loved” then she really was. They told the truth. The only thing the two networks had in common they both said who, what, when, and where. Both omitted why due to lack of information and both gave an overview of her life and accomplishments. In complete contrast, Aljazeera completely glorified her life, in her death. They subliminally told you to feel sad, to feel the loss. They made her up to be way more important to the American public then she was.

To summarize, both versions for the coverage on Houston’s death start relatively the same way. The do this by simply outlining her death, details of the discovery on the body, information regarding her current status as an artist at the time of her death, and finally possible input from fellow musicians and individuals associated with her. In both versions you find many quotes of “She was a wonderful artist, and a friend”, “She will be greatly misses” and so on. However, after the facts are spilled, differences arise. CNN’s version goes into a retrospect of Houston’s life, explaining the many hit singles and her added success as an actress; while briefly mentioning her destructive, drug-filled relationship with the infamous Bobby Brown. On the other hand, Aljazeera’s version proceeds to go into a relatively large section explaining how Houston had been partying and drinking heavily the night before her body was discovered. TMZ, a gossip site notorious for exploiting the personal lives of popular celebrities, is cited numerous times as the main source of this information. In conclusion TMZ is nowhere to be found in CNN’s version.

My final assessment? CNN did a much better job covering the story, while Aljazeera  fed the story. They used the media to get more attention and lengthened out the story with bias views. They were untrue and too opinionated. I want to know the details, not what they think I felt of her. Yes, she was a great singer, many liked her but she was not as liked as they portrayed. To end with I’ll state how utterly shocked I was to see how different, and how bias or unbiased two stations could be when covering the same story. A true eye opener.