The article is a "lightly edited" transcript of a chat between 538 writers who are conversing the different lessons democrats are taking from the 2016 presidential election. The addition of "lightly edited" within the passage causes the reader to be slightly skeptical. At least when I first read the passage, I felt that this statement both adds credibility and takes it away. They admit that there were changes made to the conversation, which both causes me to skeptical as to which parts of the conversation weren't actually stated and also makes its more believable as to what was said. The fact that there are far more negative articles on the republican party than Democratic Party suggest as to which party the news site favors. The use of some simpler diction adds a more conversational feel to the passage as well as makes the passage more "personal". The knowledge they proved themselves to know within the passage also builds to their credibility as educated people. The passage is clearly directed towards a more democratic audience who favors a more familiar conversational style piece.
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Harry Enten, journalist for 538, published an article titled, Trump hasn't diminished america's faith in elections, but he has polarized it, this article outlines the events leading to trumps accusations of a rigged election system. Enten begins the article by comparing the odds of getting struck by lightening with the chances of a rigged election system. Enten states, "Pick a random person out of the phone book, and there’s a better chance he or she will get struck by lightning than commit voter fraud". This implication is made to both add support to the main claim through an appeal to logic as well as ethos. The statement is such a specific circumstance that only a very educated individual would know such statistics, therefor proving his credibility. This doubt in the presidents accusations also serves to suggest that the author finds Trump less than favorable. The high diction within this piece might serve as to persuade the reader that president Trump is not "healthy" for America. Another statement within the article declares, "But while Trump hasn’t eroded America’s trust in its elections overall, he has polarized confidence in the vote". This remark degrades Trumps claim and rather than investigate the claim, implies that Trump is "crazy" and "paranoid" in making such a claim. This claim is more than likely to be true, as his opposing candidate has as history of lying and keeping personal records of confidential files. Much like other FiveThirtyEight writers, Enten analyzes an article without fully considering other aspects and incorporates his own bias within the article.
The passage begins with two accusations, one against, now former FBI director, James Comey, and the other against the current president, Donald Trump. The article first accuses James Comey of mishandling the Clinton Email investigation. The article uses facts and an account of the events in which strengthen the argument against Comey. The second accusation pins the firing on a possibility of relations between the president and Russian authorities. The article states how easy Trump would be able to get away with such an act by using the democratic blame on Comey against him. The use of terms such as cynical, threatening, and skepticism influence the tone of the passage as accusatory. The inclusion of statements made by politicians in the same party as the current party helps build the case again Trump. The passage states, "Republican Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina said " I am troubled by the timing and reasoning of the Director Comey's termination". This statement builds the credibility of the authors accusation against Trump by support of politicians in the same party as president Trump.
Kathryn Casteel writes about economic and policy issues for FiveThirtyEight. She wrote an article which was published as of April 26th 2017, titled: Trump's Wall won't Stop the Drugs. Within her passage she argued against president Trump's statement that the wall will prevent drugs from crossing the Mexican-American border. Within this passage, Kathryn does an excellent job of keeping her own political views from appearing within her work. She uses a very matter-of-fact tone, which is expressed with use of elevated diction, lack of passive voice, and statistics to back up her claims. She uses data from the Drug Enforcement Administration which claims that most of the illegal substances brought into the United States are transported in vehicles through legal points of entry, in order to substantiate her claim that the wall won't stop drugs from crossing the border. Perhaps a statistic on exactly how much drugs are brought into the United States through legal points of entry would help strengthen her argument.
The article begins with a comparison between President Trump's actions and his predecessors. This comparison is used to imply to the reader that Trump cares more about the economy than he does the environment. This implication isn't exactly fair as global warming hasn't been proved. Coal, despite popular belief, can be mined and burned with little economic impact. The comparison is comparing two different actions by the presidents, one's environmental action and the other economic action.
As with almost every news source, this article uses a professional diction in order to build credibility as well as persuade the reader. For those who are weekly readers, you might have read my former post on the author Ben Casselman. This author is also the writer for this article, therefor the biased used within the previous passage can also be applied to this critique. (Referenced Blog Post on March 10th 2017 titled: Anti-Trump Agenda?) Casselman also referenced the response from environmentalists when stating: "Environmental groups countered that the order would do little for the economy while doing potentially irreversible damage to efforts to combat climate change". These environmentalist simply value the affect of actions on the environment rather than look at the positive effect this order might have on the United States economy. Casselman also engages the audience through appeals to pathos. When criticizing Trumps order as being bad for the environment, this makes the reader feel almost sympathetic for the environment. Ben Casselman, chief editor for FiveThirtyEight news, published an article on March 10th 2017 at 9:48 Am, which analyzes the job growth within the United States and serves to explain where this growth originates. Throughout this piece, Casselman makes implications and passive aggressive statements which imply that he is personally not exactly fond of president Trump. Does his personal beliefs interfere with his analysis of the economic success?
Within the first two sentences of the piece, Casselman states, "Hiring was strong and wage growth accelerated in President Trump’s first full month in office. But don’t give Trump credit, at least not yet". This bold statement can be interpreted in many ways, either Casselman thinks that it is in deed to early to base the success on the new president, or his personal dislike towards president Trump influenced his piece into rejecting the idea that Trump benefitted the country this early. Casselman doubts the new presidents ability to positively impact the nations economy, he expresses his doubt when stating, "it’s unlikely Trump or his policies will be the primary cause". The author expresses his doubt in the president very shortly after the election with little evidence to support his claim. Lucia He is a reporter based in Buenos Aires and covers issues related to Latin America. He recently published an article on FiveThirtyEight, Trump Could Really Mess Up Mexico's Economy, which states that the new president's plans could negatively affect Mexico's economy. Within the article, Lucia uses a variety of styles of diction to sway the reader to support the main idea of the article.
Lucia uses diction which might evoke a negative feeling towards the president. The use of the words: Threatening, endangering, and devastating, to describe the presidents actions are meant to skew the readers opinion to believe that Trump is an "evil" person. Lucia explains the ways Trump's actions would affect a family negatively in a way which might evoke sympathy towards these families and rather hatred towards the president. The purpose of this article is to inform people the negative effects that president Trump's plans might have on Mexico. This article is written in a critical and ridiculing tone which expresses the author's personal beliefs. The author uses quotes from various Latin American leaders to support his statements. These individuals themselves are biased on the subject as they might be closely related to the Mexican economy. The general idea of the public is that President Trump is a prejudice and racist individual, this idea might influence these leaders as they themselves are of a different heritage than Donald Trump himself. While he may or may not in fact be this way, we may never know because nearly every news source skews the story to increase rating or views. *For the link to the news source mentioned above, please visit the SOURCES page listed at the top left.* |
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May 2017
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