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Political Bias on BBC, CNN, and Fox News - Doria

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counter-arguments. This suggests a Republican bias based <strong>on</strong> the focus being <strong>on</strong> the<br />

Republican point of view. Looking at not <strong>on</strong>ly the meaning but also the order of the<br />

14 occurrences reveals that there is, in fact, a pattern that diminishes the effect of the<br />

initial c<strong>on</strong>clusi<strong>on</strong>s. As discussed in c<strong>on</strong>necti<strong>on</strong> with plans, Republican plans are<br />

followed by Democratic criticisms or counter-arguments, <strong>and</strong>, even though<br />

numerically the Republican plan is more prominent, it must be assumed that the base<br />

argument must always be properly presented before counter-arguments can be<br />

included. Regardless, twice the Republican plan is discussed without Democratic<br />

criticism <strong>and</strong>, thus, <strong>CNN</strong> remains slightly right-leaning in this manner of analysis.<br />

A similar analysis of the <strong>Fox</strong> <strong>News</strong> article that thrice menti<strong>on</strong>s taxes as the <strong>on</strong>ly<br />

soluti<strong>on</strong> to the deficit problem results in a much less ambiguous result than in the<br />

case of the <strong>CNN</strong> article. Two of the three segments (66.7 percent) in which taxes are<br />

menti<strong>on</strong>ed discuss the Republican plan for implementing spending cuts now <strong>and</strong><br />

discussing tax reform later. That is to say, two of the three segments in which taxes<br />

appear al<strong>on</strong>e, the c<strong>on</strong>text reveals that what is really at issue is spending cuts - <strong>and</strong><br />

possibly tax increases later - indicating a pro-Republican view. The third segment<br />

menti<strong>on</strong>s the fight over how much...revenue can be used for deficit reducti<strong>on</strong> rather<br />

than tax rate reducti<strong>on</strong>. This is interesting <strong>on</strong> two accounts. Firstly, neither <strong>BBC</strong> nor<br />

<strong>CNN</strong> menti<strong>on</strong>s this fight, but rather the fight they menti<strong>on</strong> is over spending cuts <strong>and</strong><br />

tax increases. This could indicate a c<strong>on</strong>servative bias by <strong>Fox</strong> <strong>News</strong> because tax rate<br />

reducti<strong>on</strong> is typically desired by Republicans. Sec<strong>on</strong>dly, the menti<strong>on</strong> of the fight is<br />

followed by liberal activists warned Democrats not to give in <strong>on</strong> the issue, which<br />

may be offensive to liberals who do not c<strong>on</strong>sider themselves as liberal activists (i.e. a<br />

term at times used in a derogatory manner by c<strong>on</strong>servatives) but still feel that<br />

Democrats should not give in. In this case, then, <strong>Fox</strong> <strong>News</strong> seems to be c<strong>on</strong>servative.<br />

8.2.4 The Morning-after pill set<br />

The final set of articles c<strong>on</strong>cerns the morning-after pill <strong>and</strong>, more precisely, the<br />

overruling of the decisi<strong>on</strong> to make it available without a prescripti<strong>on</strong> for all women<br />

of reproductive age (i.e. even those under the age of 17). Democrats typically support<br />

76

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