alternative media

This second graded blog is about comparing alternative media sources with mainstream media sources. The main difference between the two is that alternative media does not profit financially which creates an obvious difference in motives. That being said, I selected Democracy Now! which is a radio program that is broadcast nationally. I checked out their online site and the stories that they covered were on there with summaries. I noticed that the stories covered the election which is no surprise. However, I also noticed that all of the stories had a liberal slant and were targeted towards democrats. For example, the first story listed was titled, "WV Voting Machines Switch Votes from Obama to McCain." The story then points out that in West Virginia, Republicans were in charge of overseeing elections. This is an obvious shot at Republicans for corruption and conspiracy. The stories don't get any better for conservatives. Here are the titles for the other four stories I read. You will see that they are pretty self-explanatory:McCain Supporters Harass Obama Voters in North Carolina, Ohio Governor: GOP Is Trying to Scare Newly Registered Voters, Obama Campaign Volunteer Assaulted in Wisconsin, and the last story which was not about the election, Fox News Hires Judith Miller. This last story talked about how Fox News, a known conservative news source, hired this woman who was said to have "aided the Bush Administration in making a case for the War" I then looked at their mission statement in which they claimed to be independant and providing a view not seen in mainstream media. I would hardly call them independant considering every story was aimed at liberal democrats and most stories were bashing republicans. Since this assignment required comparison, I thought what better comparison than to do Fox News. We were urged to report on the same stories for both sources but I could not find a single similar story, at least, pertaining to voting. Indeed Fox News reported on stories geared towards conservatives so I wasn't too surprised in my findings. My curiousity got the best of me and I decided to do a little extra credit work. I went to MSNBC which is NBC's news program. They are consistantly liberal so I figured that they would have the same stories as Democracy Now!. To my surprise, They only had one story in common which was about Obama's grandmother's broken hip. I even checked another alternative media source and they didn't have the any of the same stories as Democracy Now!. Given the information I collected, I have come to the conclusion that Democracy Now! isn't a reliable news source, but a source for stirring up hate towards Republicans and a catalyst for conspiracy. In fact...now that I think about it, maybe Democracy Now! is the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks...
Today's Lesson: Keep your ears open and your eyes open wider. Make sure you have all the information before you come to conclusions.
Thats all for now.
Gabe