The Reality of News
The tone of the coverage of news and stories in different types of media has always been one of the determinative aspects that inevitably shapes the attitude of the audience to the event. Regardless of the nature of the story, media are the powerful and robust tool that might even influence the outcome of the occurrence, being able to alter the disposition of the public and the feelings of people concerning the news covered. Consequently, it is possible to claim that the reality of news is a subjective notion as it depends on many social, political, economic, and cultural factors. This paper analyzes the differences in the coverage of the profile of Ivanka Trump in two media, namely NPR and NBC, being aimed to show the discrepancies in their approaches to telling the news and outlining the personality of Ivanka.
Given the specific circumstances, one event can be covered totally differently, thus creating the counter-narrative in various means of the transmission and communication of numerous types of news and information. This aspect of media and press has always attracted the attention of a vast number of scholars of multidisciplinary fields. A great amount of political analysts and journalists are convinced that media has the “primordial power” (White 327). According to White, media can shape the worldview of the audience and manipulate the feelings, steering or drawing away the attention and focus of the great masses of the population. Thus, it is possible to say about the regulatory function of the media coverage that aims at altering the situation in the country, especially when the covered news are concerned with the issues of political or economic nature. The presidential race that was held in the USA was also in the focus of all types of media. Local, national, and international newspapers, as well as the numerous channels, radio stations, and the Internet platforms took an active participation in the electoral process of 2016, putting into the spotlight all in-betweens and outs of the pre- and post-electoral time frames.
The desire of the media to shape the attitudes of the society that could eventually influence the potential outcome of the presidential race led to one particular occurrence when The Wall Street Journal issued to different editions of the newspaper on the same day. Both editions had the same photo of Trump with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on their covers. However, the messages under the image were totally divergent. One of the covers was rather approving of Trump’s policy, as the headline stated “Trump Softens His Tone”, while the second one was the opposite, with the headline “Trump Talks Tough on Wall” (Evon, 2016). Although Colleen Schwartz who holds the position of the Vice President of Communications at The WSJ claimed that both editions were issued with a time difference, the softened one earlier than the denouncing one (JKR, 2016), as the circumstances made Trump change his mind, this situation proves that media can influence …
