Obama's Education Speech

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/09/14/obama.back.to.school/?hpt=T2

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/09/obama-gets-personal-in-school-speech/1

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jETZSUicKxSQ_0IFsD2cOY9J_FSQD9I7QTQG1

When looking to compare three news stories covering the same event, I found articles about Obama’s back-to-school speech on the websites of CNN, USA Today, and the Associated Press. After examining these articles, it became apparent that although all of them report facts, their selective focus reveals glaring favoritism of different angles of the story.  All of the articles give the basic setting: Obama delivering a speech to back-to-school students, but that is where the similarities end.

CNN’s article details the speech from a retrospective point of view.  The staff writers make sure to point out conservative criticism of Obama’s planned speech the previous year.  Snippets of Obama’s current speech are included sporadically within the article, including a short reference to a recollection about the President’s mother.  Otherwise, the article focuses on comparisons between the political controversy of last year’s speech and the lack of a political agenda in this year’s speech. 

The USA Today write-up is markedly shorter.  It raises no comparisons between this speech and the one last year.  Instead, it highlights the personal statements Obama made about his family and his upbringing as the bi-racial child of divorced parents. 

The Associated Press article seems to combine and condense the previous two stories.  There are quotes detailing Obama’s encouragement of the students along with some of the President’s personal stories.  It also mentions the lack of controversy in this year’s speech, although the reference comes in the middle of the article, while it appears in the very first paragraph in the CNN article. 

  

After reading all the articles, it seems to me that the differences are rather glaring.  Emphasis on certain facts makes the portrayals of the story completely distinctive.  In one, Obama has risen above the previous criticism from the right.  On another, that criticism is ignored entirely in favor of Obama’s personal victories in school.  The last account offers a balance of the two angles. 

These articles provide a clear indication of the media’s ability to construct reality by providing some facts and excluding others.  It is evident that the media can present undistorted facts but still filter them.