Framing in Today's News: Ethical or Not?

Today’s news stations always seem to have some side agenda to meet when reporting the news. It’s not always enough to just tell you what’s happening in the world, sometimes they have to try to give the viewer a subtle push in the right direction as to how they interpret the news we hear. This is called framing a story. Framing literally means, a structure or angle given to a news story that influences the readers understanding.  A good example of this could be the report titled, Order for millions of blank work permits, green cards raising amnesty concerns, posted on FOX news October 21st 2014. The link to the article and video report are below and I suggest watching it before continuing.

Order for millions of blank work permits, green cards raising amnesty concerns- FOX News

This report begins the framing process in the title with the use of the word amnesty. Amnesty means pardoning of someone who has caused a major political offense. This brings the idea to mind the image that the Hispanic migrants are a group of lawless thugs who could have already committed heinous crimes either in the states or out of them. It is true that entering the country illegally is considered against the law but this has been considered a minor misdemeanor for a long time up until recent years, and the way they are making it out to sound frames the migrants in the worst possible light from the very start.

The report itself also makes it sound like these migrants will be simply given a card and allowed to become citizens with no questions asked, when in reality there will be a long process to gaining citizenship and a green card. There will also be fees that must be paid, including any taxes the migrants who have been in the states for over a year have not yet paid. The report also omits the rules for keeping citizenship once granted to migrants, which will require migrants to keep a very clean police record if they are to keep their green card and citizenship status, otherwise if they break any laws they can lose this and be deported back to their country of origins. The omitting of all these important facts serves only to turn the audience against the migrants in this report.

Example of another news company known for framing its news every once in a while.

Finally they also include in the video itself a comment that is very important to notice. “So with millions of Americans still out of jobs, Obama’s plans will allow for employers to hire millions of foreigners…” They mention at the beginning that millions of Americans are out of work, right before saying how the plan will allow millions of migrants to be hired in the states. This is a gross slant saying that it is the fault of this plan and the migrants that these Americans are out of work and will stay out of work. There are no sources given to link the number of Americans out of work to this plan at all and again this is another act of framing to turn the viewer against the plan and the migrants.

In the end there were many more graceful ways this report could have been done. For one they could have actually gone into the details and restrictions about the plan and how these green cards would be given out and what would be needed to earn and then keep them. They also could have gone with a less aggressive title for the report itself. Whether you agree with the message this report portrays or not I feel that it should be understood that there is an ethical problem in the way it was structured. News should be as objective as possible so as to allow the viewer to make his own informed decision. This report, on the other hand, left out a lot of key information and added in opinions that had no place in an objective news report. Sadly this is only one example of the framing you can find on news sites right this second.

Media and Public Relations during the BP Oil Spill

The BP oil spill or Deep Water Horizon spill of 2010 was arguably the worst man made environmental disaster of the last decade if not all of human history. The spill happened when a BP oil rig in the gulf of Mexico exploded, leaking 4.9 million barrels of oil into the gulf over a period of 87 days. This eventually affected about 16,000 miles of coastline. In the first 6 months since the spill over 8000 animals were found dead from the oil, many were on the endangered species list. The oil continued to affect the yearly appearance of shrimp and fish in the gulf even to the current day, though the impact has been lessened by 2014. Many people thinking back to this event probably see the images of black ocean water and sludgy beaches or maybe even the images of poor animals covered in oil confused and scared. In the end this wasn't something BP oil will be living down anytime soon. In fact, at the time many people didn't think the company would be able to live through the event at all. Putting the monetary price of cleaning up their mess aside, how did BP oil still retain enough good press to keep people from boycotting it and ending it right after that terrible event? The answer to that is today’s subject, Public Relations people. Specifically what important points I would choose to emphasize for BP in this crisis had I been called in as a PR person.

                Public relations people work on a company’s public image to keep it in good standings with their clients. In which case one would think the BP oil spill was probably a near impossible event save the BP oil company from. Even so, it has recovered, or at least survived the spill so they must have had some pretty good PR people. Having seen the extent of damage and read up on the responsibilities of PR people I think I know a few main topics that I think I would have targeted with ads to save BP in the eyes of their clients. First off I would have looked for anything and everything that could be said about what BP oil was doing to fix the oil spill right after it happened, as this would insure the public knew that the company was concerned for the environment and peoples well being and was doing everything in its power to fix it. For this we'd probably use a lot of photography and video of images like the one below. Secondly I’d find what the source of the explosion that caused the spill was and try to make it sound as much like an accident as possible, unless it was very obviously not an accident, in which case we’d need to create a very sincere apology for the world and explain that this outcome was not something the company foresaw.

   In the weeks following the beginning of the oil spill I’d set up extensive add campaigns show casing everything the company was doing, from trying to cap the spill to their cleanup efforts using images like those below. Emphasis would have to be put on every bit of progress made to make sure the public knew that the company was working on the problem. This process would have been crucial at all times during the spill considering the length of time the oil spill was going on for before it was capped.

    Finally once the spill was stopped and cleanup efforts were in full swing at least a few of the people and towns negatively impacted by the oil spill on the coast would have to have reparations made to them. This of course would then be show cased in more ad campaigns to show the good that BP is doing to make up for its mistake. It would not be easy goings for BP and this plan would cost hundreds of thousands if not more but I think it’d be a small price to pay to save the company.

   Quick reminder for readers, none of this is what was necessarily done by BP during the spill crisis, this is only the general plan I think I would use if I was BP’s head PR person during the crisis. Of course I never looked up what they actually did since I feel that would have defeated the purpose of this assignment that I was writing this for. The facts at the beginning are sound though and I will post the link to where I received them below.

http://ocean.si.edu/gulf-oil-spill

Linkedin as a Social Media Network

   Social media for most people is a way to connect with friends and family and stay up to date with their lives during the changing circumstances of your own. The concept of social media is that one joins a social media website where you can upload different information about yourself like pictures, contact info, daily updates from you, or content you find enjoyable. Of course the content that can be uploaded and the rules, concrete and unspoken, differ from one social media site to another.

   Recently I have been introduced to a somewhat different Social media site named LinkedIn, which is much more professional than sites like Facebook or Tumblr which are the main sites I use. LinkedIn is mostly used to upload and showcase yourself, all past job experiences, current skills, current career, and resumes online for potential employers to see. At first glance it does seem like LinkedIn is more of a job site than a social media site, but one of the main aspects of LinkedIn is networking which of course is what social media is all about on some level. LinkedIn allows you to make your own profile and add connections, similarly to adding friends on Facebook and getting followers or becoming a follower on other social media sites. LinkedIn relies heavily on the notion of the six degrees of separation, which states that any one person is separated from any other person in the world by at most six additional people in a social network. This means that in theory on a site like LinkedIn you have the potential to make valuable connections to people in fields or careers that you may want to get into. Therefore, if you do connect with these people you will have a person inside the company you want to work for to help you get your foot in the door for a job at that same company.

   I for one am glad to know about this social media site, as I believe it can open many doors for people wanting to find jobs that they may not have even known existed. As a student, I also think that it is a useful tool for finding internships or co-ops, which are important for most college students like myself to gain experience before heading into the job market upon graduation.

Link to my LinkedIn Profile