We can start with MSNBC, this is a very American News source, they want to make the US seem like the good guys and give the Islam’s and the Iraqis a bad reputation.
I have picked a quote from MSNBC which says: “They are advising Bush to declare Iraq as a violator of the United Nations disarmament order…” This quote is very much interpreted and distorted. This is not confirmed yet; therefore it is distorted as they are quoting what the US officials said to provoke Iraq.
The US also says “Evidence against Saddam” as if they had a lot of evidence, but they really don’t have any evidence of what Saddam wants to do.
Also most pictures of The Iraqi leader Saddam are drawn to make him look bad, with an evil grin on his face, suggesting us that he is an evil man with bad intentions.
Now we move on to CNN, which was found in America, but its considered to be neutral as it is International, and not just in the US, but of course its going to be probably a little bit biased towards the USA.
Since CNN is neutral it can only base itself on facts and quotes since it can’t give any countries point of view, however I have noticed that from every neutral source, there is always some bias things involved in it.
A quote given was : “They have failed the test and we will make it plain that they have done so”, quotes like this don’t really suggest any distortion, however, the repetition of these cruel and harsh quotes in CNN news, can tell us the writers opinion on the subject.
Lastly we move to the Islam Online news, we would expect to see quite a biased view on the subject. In order to fit Islamic readers, things like “Washington Skeptical over Iraqi declaration” were added to the news. This is made to calm down the Islamic population, since they fear an attack, and that skeptical is supposed to calm them down, when the Bush has said things like “I am sick and tired of Saddams games” and has actually wanted to attack Iraq from day one. This distortion was made not to alarm the Muslim public and keep them within their borders.
Being able to analyze data like this is a very useful skill, as it can be used everyday when reading the news, and we can distinguish factual reporting from distortion and interpretation.
