The Reality of News

The Reality of News
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The Reality of News
The biggest challenge facing the world right now is the Covid-19 pandemic. The news about the infections and death from the virus has become part of the daily stories covered by media channels. The past few weeks have seen media outlets focus their attention on the surge of cases of the virus in India, which has become the global center of the pandemic. With the country having record cases of the virus, much of the media's airtime and content is focused on informing the global audience of the dire situation in the Asian country. This paper analyzes how the story has been covered in two major news outlets: CNN and Fox News. Specifically, the paper examines news articles by Jessie Yeung (CNN) and Jackie Salo (Fox News). Both of the articles try to provide an overview of the Covid-19 crisis in the country.
The two news stories both use the traditional journalistic perspective. As informed by Potter (2016), for an event to be considered newsworthy, it must have seven characteristics that include timeliness, significance, prominence, proximity, conflict, human interest, and deviance. The Covid-19 stories as presented by the two media outlets meet these criteria. The news is timely as India is undergoing a crisis at the moment, and it is also significant because countries all over the world are battling the pandemic. The Indian president and the government, as well as the healthcare institutions in the country, make the news prominent. The news also adheres to the proximity characteristic because everyone in the world, including the US, is affected by the pandemic. There is also conflict in the story as the Indian government is blamed for laxity. The death associated with the event, as well as the record number of cases, make the event both deviant and appealing to human interest. Therefore, to a great extent, both of the two news stories follow the traditional journalistic perspective.
The sources used in the stories are credible primarily because they are reputable. In the CNN news story, the reputable sources include the chair of the Lancet Covid-19 Commission India Task Force, principal advisor of the Indian government, Prime Minister, WHO, India's National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), and Johns Hopkins University. In the Fox News Story, sources such as the professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, a top virologist, and a health system expert are used. The sources for both stories are credible, but the news story by CNN appears more credible.
The messages presented in the story are almost similar, but the CNN one is more comprehensive and is supported by many sources. The message presented in both stories is that the situation in India is dire. However, the story in CNN takes into account the effort by the government as well other countries, wh...