Donald Trump and Times Magazine

This week's blog is going to be able the alleged news bias and the misinformation our "Madam President" has tweeted about in the last week or so about how he turned down the whole TIME magazine's title of "Person of the Year" and ultimately how the people themselves take to the internet and troll the living hell out of this over grown man child and probably why we see the net neutrality situation occurring. I won't go into huge detail on each and every part of this because it will only be speculative due to the time crunching that will occur as we have finals coming up (btw best of luck for my peers and such. It's been a blast to have shared this experience and this year with y'all.)

So, this week I pulled my information from Politico yet again! I have really grown to love the fact that one story is backed by at least 3 articles having different views on said story. This was the exact premise of my blog in the first place so it has been good to be able to stream line by blog posts. 

The story has to do with Trump stating that he had to turn down the person of the year cover and all from TIMES magazine to which TIMES shot back stating that they had never offered this spot to the president. That could be simple because there are actually people out there in the world who deserve this position more than this man child (my words). More to the fact is that twitter blew up with people basically trolling the president in various ways (please click the link to see more information about this). As you are probably all aware if you have me on twitter, I have made it a point to leave comments on his statements as I find him to be the least credible individual on the planet and as much as I might not like CNN and their ways of presenting their stories there is still some shred of truth to their blog like story telling posts.The fact is, our news stations are corporate ran and as a result their sentimentalization of simple stories has grown quite large. 

This brings me to the fact that Net Neutrality is under fire currently and I personally think these situations are prime examples why that might be the case. There is a lot of internet traffic occurring which is good but I feel as though the pull of NN might be a way to which individuals are limited to their ability to seek out actual news and not the propagated stories to which our news sources allow us to believe. 

If you are not familiar with this then I IMPLORE YOU TO RESEARCH AND PLEASE LOOK INTO SIGNING THIS PETITION TO REJECT THE REPEAL OF NN BY THE FCC

here is the link 

I will leave this short and sweet and say this year has been one hell of a ride and I wish the best for you and yours. Happy Holidays and have a wonderful and safe New Years! 

Thank you!

New Tax Bill Gets Past the House!

So today the proposed tax bill made its way through the House of Representatives by a 22 vote margin. This is kind of huge due to the fact that a tax bill has not been passed like this in a while. Not a single democrat voted in favor for the bill and about a dozen Republicans voted against the bill but never the less it still went through. The thing is these bills often include more substance than just the issue of tax as we have seen time and time again when a huge bill makes its way through the house. The reality is that this bill if it makes its way further through the law making process will see itself change into something much different than what it currently is. For instance, the bill currently has within its content a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. This is huge because the president CANNOT line item veto the bill once it makes its way to his desk so if Trump really wants the bill to go through he will sign it without ever really looking into the fine print.  This bill is supposed to redistribute the tax burden on those states like New York and California who's personal state and sales tax are high and low tax states basically have to supplement the difference in taxes to those states. Personally, I'm broke as can be so no amount of tax change alters my life of roman noodles and $0.99 sandwiches.


As always, I have used Allsides (Politico) as my means of information because I like the approach of the website. The blog speaks on the subject and provides three separate stories from the LEFT, RIGHT, and CENTER. Please skim through them and consider each of their approaches and what information that they choose to provide. Make up your own conclusion on the subject and go from there.

Have a wonderful day and comment below if you feel so. :)

Politico - The Subtleties of Media Bias

This weeks post is going to recap on much of what we have learned in class about the media and its ultimate and unavoidable bias which comes with it. The article is found in their "Perspective Blog" section and is titled The Subtleties of Media Bias. I find this article extremely important because it speaks on the very point to which my blog is set up! I've spoken on this subject as well we have learned much of this in our readings. Media outlets are inherently bias and we often end up leaning toward the media to which cradles our ideas and political identify without ever really looking toward the other side of the fence for a better understanding of the information. I myself have found that finding the most unbias, neutral information within the media is more important. This blog states that doing so isn't always the best thing but that we should also willingly read information which comes from all sides of the spectrum. So what we read ultimately has a bias to it whether we realize it or not and this can be witnessed through what and how information is delivered to its consumers.


Types of Bias

1.) Bias by Omission.
2.) Bias by selection of sources.
3.) Bias by placement
4.) Bias by labeling
5.) Bias by spin

Each one of these forms of bias can be seen and understood once one admits to the fact that there is bias in all forms of information. By doing this one can read an article by FOX news and say, "hey they left out ____" or watch CNN and ask, "hey, this person really an "expert?" or "Why is President Trump's tweet more important than the issue in Flint?" Surely there are more important things to discuss than Don Jr's new tie he wore to an interview...



This blog goes on to speak on gate keeping bias to which conservative outlets tend to speak on illegal immigrants and the crimes in which they commit while liberal outlets speak on white terrorist occurrences which have been more frequent. In this, though both may be occurring both sources choose to speak on these subjects exclusively and because of this the fact is distorted and often made to seem more frequent than in reality. This is not to say the act should be taken any less than it is.

In addition, because of the ownership of the media outlet the advertising and corporate bias ultimately shapes the content and delivery of the information. Lastly, this blog speaks on tonal and concision bias which occur through the media. Tonal bias ultimately deals with the delivery of a story to which can be drastically different based on who you get the information from. This is something that I spoke on in one of my first blogs where RT (Russian Television) spoke on German-American relations if we were to go to war with North Korea. You did not hear about this in American media what so ever. Concision bias deals with the fact that information is compressed to the point where the entire subject matter cannot be discussed to a full understanding and because of this really important information is broken down into Powerpoint - bullet points of information to give a general overview of a story which often times makes something that is extremely important seem much less so.

Please take the time to read the blog from Politico and tell me what you think of this blog below. Since this has probably been one of the most busy looking blog I've posted lately I figure I'd wrap the blog up with some funny political cartoons. :) Goodnight

Russian manipulation of Facebook and Election

Hello again blog people! Here is another week where I'm going to bring you something from Politico. I know probably by this point you are noticing that my content is starting to get predictable in terms of where I'm getting my information. I have to admit I have been extremely busy and I haven't had the time to really look into a bunch of different sources to which I could pull from this particular website. I find this to be much more convenient. Never the less! I found this article I really like which speaks on the election (I'm sure we're all tired of hearing about it) and how the original investors of Facebook were actually Russian investors. We can all agree that Facebook has played a large part in how we all get our politically driven news sources and MEMES. So, in theory it could be safe to say that the investors to which helped fund Facebook in the beginning might control the content in which it produces and allows so in this idea it's accurate in saying how the speculations of "Russian involvement" could be plausible - however you might view it. Personally, I think it's iffy at best!




The story here goes on to say that Silicon Valley managed to get an investment from a Russian bank. This guy by the name of Yuri Milner invested around $850k of her own money into a company Donald Trump's step son Jared Kushner partially owns.

Apparently the bank is called VTB and was eventually sanctioned and is currently being investigated by the U.S. for its potential involvement in the 2016 election. As a general over statement it seems like there was investment in this company prior to it becoming public and in addition over time these folks grew in wealth and managed to pull some really big profits. There was a lot of people who refused to speak on the situation (I would assume because to them it's speculative) yet it seems really odd with all of this going on but in the same situation....I feel like it's possible that Silicon Valley is just a hot bed for investing toward technology and it could be a coincidence that the person who happen to invest in this company was Russian...or maybe not. I guess we will see as time goes by.