The Gatekeepers of Politics

When you open up you news feeds this week one of the top stories will be about Trump and the NFL. While that is not to say an important story, what happened to the coverage of Hurricane Maria and the devastation that it brought upon Puerto Rico? There is certainly coverage of the devastation, however it is not nearly as important to the major news outlets as a juicy gossip story about Trump. Whether you hate or love Trump or feel indifferent the news outlets make it so that we never forget the latest tweet that he has said. While I don't deny that it is important to know what the president is thinking and tweeting, I don't think it needs to always be the most important thing in the news. We are getting so lost in the debates about who is right and wrong in a situation that we are losing sight of what is really important, stories that matter. Puerto Rico is in a crisis unlike anything they have seen before. The news outlets were so quick to jump on Hurricane Harvey and

I recently posted an article about breaking news and what I thought personally warranted breaking news. I used the example of CNN discussing the controversy behind Trump revoking an invitation to the White House to Stephen Curry. Since I wrote that piece there has been much more light shed on the situation and there are things I need to explain. I was not suggesting that this was not news worthy information. I was however questioning, the validity of it being put on a breaking news twitter feed and trying to draw up the question of what should or should not be considered breaking news. The story has become so much more than just that one issue though. If you look at the Twitter feeds it is filled with different stories and accounts of athletes about the entire situation rather than just the Trump and Stephen Curry aspect. This made me think about the fact that politics surrounds us in everything we do. We would be blind not to assume that politics plays a role in other aspects of o

It is not just what stories gatekeepers decide to share, but also how they are worded. The saying goes, there's his side, her side and the truth. This saying is true in the world of social media and politics. A story can and will be told from many different news outlets and while they may all be telling the same story, that story can be recounted in many different ways. There are two ways that all the information is changed based on the news outlet sharing a story. The first is the amount of information shared. A political news article cannot always give all the information on a topic. They have to pick an choose what they think is the most important information about the topic to put into their story. People don't always have the longest attention span, so it is vital to get as much information as possible in as few characters as possible. The other way information can differ is through the words and the way the words are phrased.  Words are a powerful tool and the way thi

One of the biggest mistakes that people make when it comes to news is believing anything they hear. We live in a time where anyone can publish or post anything they want to the internet. It is an exciting yet scary concept. On one hand more people can be heard and we have more than one account of a story. On the other hand you have to be diligent to figure out if the information you are receiving is reliable. Fake news is such a common word in our society's vocabulary. Most of the public understands that fake news exists, however discerning what is and what isn't fake news isn't always the easiest. People get sucked in by the headlines and the first article they see. The problem is that fake news is easily spread because of social media and has a greater impact on the general public. With false information, the public then has to distinguish the difference and reliability of a news source. The gatekeeper and source of the information are two important ways to underst

What constitutes breaking news? That can be a matter of opinion and makes it hard to distinguish what should or should not be considered breaking news. I follow CNN Breaking News on Twitter and expect to see hard hitting, important political topics that are current. See there is that matter of opinion. That is what I believe I should see when I look at the news in the morning. The gatekeeper of that particular page may have a very different idea as to what will make a good story for the public. The story that they decided to post about today was the debate over Trump pulling his White House invite to Stephen Curry. This particular article written by CNN was about the response by professional athletes. There is always going to be controversy behind the words and actions of the president. However, the questions stands, does this constitute as political breaking news? Trump has had one of the most vocally scrutinized political campaigns and presidency. That is largely to do with the

The evolution of technology has allowed the platforms of which politicians reach their audience to be more connected. Our current president Donald Trump is a great example of this. Before when a president had something they wanted to say they would hold a press conference on the television or radio and the news stations would pick it up and carry out that message to the public. The use of social media has changed that game. Donald Trump has made history in one sense over the way he utilizes his social media account, Twitter. Whether it is truly him who is typing and creating these tweets or one of his employees, he is still making a statement with every tweet. His tweets are not just informational tweets, but they are also heavy with personal opinions. That is something that is very uncommon for the president. It also brings up many questions. For example, is this type of informal tweet about important news a good way to share the information or is it actually a genius way to kee