Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Mitch McConnell Rider Could Roll Back Campaign Finance Laws

HuffPo link here.

Liberal bias in journalism tends to be more subtle than conservative bias (just look at Fox News for a comparison), but it is equally as important to identify and dismiss as dishonesty in the mass media. This is an extremely well written article on Mitch McConnell's proposed revision to a bill that is being push through Congress that would further relax campaign finance laws, allowing even more money into the election process.

Because this hasn't made headlines around the country, the Huffington Post has decided that McConnell is trying to "sneak" his revision through, as opposed to just doing his job as a Senator. While the author does not explicitly state this, the grabbing headline posted on the website reads "McConnell Quietly Trying To Roll Back Campaign Finance Laws". As I've discussed before, headlines of this nature frame the story in the readers' minds in a biased fashion before they've even read the story, if they decide to at all. While campaign finance reform IS unpopular, and it would be in McConnell's best interests to not make this revision a big thing in the media, saying that he is quietly going about it leads the reader to think that he is trying to be deceptive, when in reality it's just smart politics.

1 comment:

  1. I agree with what you said about framing the article in the reader's minds, too often these days people only seek to reaffirm their already held notion about a topic via popular news sources and articles with titles like that do not help. More likely than not the author was attempting to target a certain audience with his article anyway, so in a way it's not bias, it's smart writing.

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