Comparison of CNN and ABC News Coverage on Donald Trump Taxes Denial

Traditional Journalism

Do Both Media Outlets Use a Traditional Journalistic Perspective In Presenting The Story? Explain Your Response.

Are The Sources Used In The News Stories Appropriate Or Credible? Why Or Why Not?

Is The Message Of The Story The Same As Presented By Each Media Outlet?  What Is The Message Of Each Story?

Did One Story Seem More Believable To You Than The Other? Explain.

As Outlined In Your Textbook, Truthfulness, Neutrality, And Accuracy Are Three Criteria For Determining The Quality Of News. Did Each Story Have All Three? 

Did One Story Have More Or Less Of One Of The Three Qualities? What Prompted You To Determine This?

A common news story from CNN and ABC is selected here; it is about the allegation of taxes on Donald Trump and the justification of Trump in reaction to the New York Times (New York Times, 2020). The storyline of both news if different but the concept is the same.

The Concept of Traditional Journalism is unbiased and depends on the evidence to support the coverage. The role of a reporter in traditional journalism is to stay completely out of the box in order to represent the positive side (Barnes, 2016).  Here is Trump’s tax story both ABC and CNN were unbiased in spite of knowing that Donald Trump is a president, they represented the actual scenarios of taxes not been paid. Hence, it is easy to say that both the news agencies have followed the concept of traditional journalism.

In the above story, both CNN and ABC have provided the source of information after each scenario; they both used the New York Times as a source of information. New York Times is the Top-rated new paper in the USA, thus can be considered a credible source of information (Hicks, 2018).

ABC News has represented the story in different styles; they mentioned the words of Donald Trump Jr. and Donald Trump’s Secretary in the same way. However, the numbers and figures appear the same in both stories, and the message they convey about the taxes, even if you are a president's responsibility of paying tax cannot be avoided.

Both News agencies have followed the basic guidelines of journalism and have represented Donald Trump’s tax concern with the required resources; this is a tough choice to identify the one, which is more believable. However, ABC News in the article has provided a selective picture of Trump, captured by the New York Times during a news conference, and the exact word of Donald Trump Jr. “It’s ridiculous. My father paid ten million dollars in taxes” (Phelps, 2020). A story with pictures seems to be more appealing to believe (EBSCO Post, 2017).

Sources Used

The basic criteria to judge a news story is to identify the truthfulness, neutrality and accuracy in it. And the idea of objectivity should be there in the story to avoid any perception (Potter, 2016). In the parameter of neutrality, both stories are almost equal, CNN and ABC news both have provided the data and records of Donald Trump’s taxes using the credible sources and are unbiased in highlighting the issues related with a president. In terms of accuracy, CNN has provided a little more information about the businesses of Trump. However, ABC has used the pictures and statements to strengthen the story. Hence, with the numbers, data, pictures, and statements quality of both story cab be determined.

In the above story, the intentions of ABC and CNN are to bring Trump’s tax story in front of the public. Irrespective of biasing both CNN and ABC have shown the accurate figures of taxes. Knowing the fact that Trump is a well-known businessman and country’s president, one of them could be biased for the business perspective, however, they did the justice towards journalism and represented the actual story. Also, the purpose of both media was not to target Trump but to highlight the concern of tax. Thus, the basics of journalism followed.

If either of the above stories was biased, it could have missed the basic rules of journalism, truthfulness, neutrality, and accuracy. My suggestion for the above news agencies to make an unbiased story is to follow the ethic of journalism. And the most important thing to make neutral news stories is to follow the concept of objectivity and stay out of the box, to avoid any perception being made (Potter, 2016).

Racial stereotyping is having thinking of a specific type, culture, group of people, society, and nationality. Similarly, a specific behaviour or attitude toward gender is considered gender stereotyping (Rogers & Meltzoff, 2017). As per the criteria above news story is free from gender and racial biasness.

As discuss above both the story appear unbiased and realistic, however, it completely dependents on the context and the content of how people understand it.  Stories of CNN and ABC represent a president’s situation where he is being highlighted in news for not paying complete federal taxes. The storyline is similar but both have different contexts and details.  CNN has more focused on president Trump’s wealth and businesses (Toh, 2020). Considering the title of news content seems to be well categorized in an effective way. One important thing that should have included in the picture of Donald Trump during the press conference so that readers could be more attractive (Rao, 2019).

The news story of ABC is the justification of Trump to the New York Times in including the tax allegation. They have shown the content about the justification from Trump and his family and also provided the actual statement said to the New York Times, with a credible picture. However, the story could contain more details about Donald Trump’s property and business, so the reader can have knowledge about Trump’s wealth which could educate the readers to understand the on-going situation and the concern of tax. A story should be completed for the audience to interpret the meaning (Potter, 2016).

People understand the story as per their interests and perceptions; there can be various understandings from a story. It is important to frame the news story as per the audience's interest. In some cases, if the news or story is unique and out of the interest of the audience, it needs to be framed well and should have complete details without biasness. There are some expectations of audiences; not meeting them can have a negative impact on the news (University Of Pittsburg, 2020).

Barnes, C. (2016). Citizen Journalism vs. Traditional Journalism: A Case for Collaboration. Caribbean Quarterly , 58 (3), 16-27.

EBSCO Post. (2017, Nov). Seeing is Believing - The Benefits of Picture Books for Building Reading Skills. Retrieved Sep 2020, from EBSCO Post: https://www.ebsco.com/blog/article/seeing-is-believing-the-benefits-of-picture-books-for-building-reading-skil

Hicks, R. (2018, Dec). How the New York Times maintains its credibility. Retrieved Sep 2020, from Quill: https://www.quillmag.com/2018/12/15/how-the-new-york-times-maintains-its-credibility/

New York Times. (2020, Sep). Long-concealed records show trump’s chronic losses and years of tax avoidance. Retrieved Sep 2020, from New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html

Phelps, J. (2020, Sep). Trump, White House blend denials, justifications in reaction to New York Times story on his taxes. Retrieved Sep 2020, from ABC News: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-white-house-blend-denials-justifications-reaction-york/story?id=73291795&cid=clicksource_4380645_4_three_posts_card_image

Potter, W. (2016). Media Literacy (8th ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.

Rao, M. (2019, Jan). The power of storytelling: how to use stories to differentiate, connect, and influence. Retrieved Sep 2020, from Your Story: https://yourstory.com/2019/01/power-storytelling-use-stories-differentiate-connect-influence

Rogers, L. O., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2017). Is gender more important and meaningful than race? An analysis of racial and gender identity among Black, White, and mixed-race children. American Psychological Association , 23 (3), 323-334.

Toh, M. (2020, Sep). Retrieved Sep 2020, from CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/28/business/trump-business-nyt-report/index.html

University Of Pittsburg. (2020). Audience Analysis. Retrieved Sep 2020, from University Of Pittsburg: https://www.comm.pitt.edu/oral-comm-lab/audience-analysis