Option #1: Critical Analysis Essay How to Detect Media Bias

Biases in Media
Students Name
Institutional Affiliation
The biases in Media Reporting of This Era
In the news article from NBC news “Trump Travel Ban makes America less safe: ex-top security state officials” Andrea Mitchel and Richie Duchon take a look at the steps taken by some of the officials of the former government to resist the Trumps ban. The articles take a look at the affidavits presented to the courts by the former secretaries of state, former CIA, and former sectaries of homeland securities. From looking at the article, there is number of fallacies that one can pinpoint. The report shows a lot of biases as they are seen in several media outlets today.
One of the approaches taken by the authors of this article is to present their view based on fallacies. One of the misconceptions that they seek to explore in this paper is that they argue that the affidavit is submitted by former government officials. Their argument, therefore, is that these are people with a high social ranking and thus they cannot be wrong with their view on the ban. The belief that they seek to present to the public is that in the case where some critical individual from the previous government has a certain view about an issue, then all of the society should believe in it because that is the truth about the issue. Such a view is ill-advised because not all former senior officers have the right opinion on an issue. The society cannot be bamboozled into an idea just because it is the view that is supported by some senior people that one's served the government.
The other fallacy that one can see here is that the conclusion that the article makes is not based on any sound analysis of the situation. First, the paper is just focused on the affidavit presented to the court, and from the view that the affidavit is in court then one should jump to the conclusion that America is not safe. There was the need for the authors to present to the audience the clear picture of the situation. The focus should be on the effects of the ban to the society and how it is going to increase the incidences of insecurity. However, the authors have shifted their focus away from the real facts, and the idea they have is only about the people that have presented the affidavit. Reading through the article one can see that the author does not have any sound analysis of the ban neither do they have a balanced view of the issue. A good news reporting should not seek to support ones view on such an emotive issue but rather to present an honest analysis of the situation.
Besides, the media is not supposed to take any side when reporting an issue. If a media takes a side on an issue, then it fails on reporting and what it would be doing is to direct the public. The media role is to inform and allow the citizen to make a personal judgment about an issue. However, focusing on the article, it is evident that the authors are not focusing on reporting but rather on the influence the people's opinions about the issue. The kind of reporting that is done in this case relies much on making the public to believe that the idea of the ban is a bad one. The others are trying ...