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.
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.
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| 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.
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