President Barack Obama Announces Total Withdrawal of US Troops From Iraq By The End of This Year by Hadley Horning, Nadejda Ouzounova, Wainok Lo and Zhiyuan Zhou.

TV: Obama on Jay Leno

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA3unYFSiX4

The story of Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq was represented in a number of ways on television. Even though it’s the same media outlet, there are still going to be different political representations across the news channels.

MSNBC is a more liberal TV network. They tend to favor the choices Obama makes and therefore showed the story in a more positive light. They talked about how it’s the end of the war and how all the troops will be out and back for the holidays. Obama fulfilled his campaign promise by officially ending the war. As a result of leaving Iraq, we will save resources (including money and many more lives). These are positive results of Obama’s decision and show everything in a more optimistic way. So, in general, they’re arguing with a liberal ideology, and their beliefs form the story in a particular way. Fox on the other hand leans to the right and is well-known for being a bit more conservative. So the conservative news networks were partial to the negative effects of Obama withdrawing from Iraq. They focused on the security issues possible now with no American presence in the area. There could be room for Iran to influence some of the people and pave the way for more radicals leading to more terrorism. To them, Obama left too early and didn’t actually finish the job and do what he was supposed to do. There’s also CNN, which is more neutral and doesn’t tend to take any extremes on stories. They mostly just stated quick facts and didn’t really make an argument on the story or show Obama in any particular way. Obama made an appearance on Jay Leno, too, where he talked a bit about withdrawing the troops. There was no actual representation here since it was Obama telling the story from his point of view trying to ignore what the media was saying.

Looking at these differences between channels makes it seem like taking a side to a story is more dramatic and may have a greater effect on viewers. This could lead them to see the story in a certain way and get people to believe that what one network was saying is the truth. It’s difficult not to have an opinion, and even though news channels typically shouldn’t be one-sided, they still tend to represent stories in a specific light. This could be why many people never get the full story simply from viewing the news. These partial truths may be leading consumers to mistrust TV news channels and have to look at other sources of media for more information.

            Another media outlet that brings an interesting analysis for Cultural Studies would be news blogs from foreign articles on Obama’s Oct. 21 announcement that troops will be pulling out American troops from Iraq.  The article I wish to analyze would be the Economist’s (English-based newspaper) Lexington opinion blog: 

http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2011/10/leaving-iraq?page=5

            Luckily, for those who are students of culture, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the position of this article:  He finds American politicians to be selfish and stupid!  This ideology the Lexington tries to construct for its reader is clear first of all because every word in this article is directly pointing out these flaws; not one word pushes for the contrary.  One explanation for this one-sided affair compared to USA Today’s seemingly universal account could be that because its writers are from another country, so they have a different audience and different consequences for their opinions.  Thus, they are more able to speak their minds freely about the issue and not necessarily please any side. 

The article also presents powerful rhetoric to support its opinion.  For example, the article supplies a remarkable quotation from Michelle Bachman, demonstrating complete utter stupidity:

            The United States needed a working democratic partnership in Iraq and we should have demanded that Iraq repay the full cost of liberating them given their rich oil revenues. I call on the president to return to the negotiating table with Iraq and lead from the front and not from weakness in Iraq and in the world.

            To this statement, the writers respond: “Good Lord, where where to begin?... there is a word for that: not a ‘working democratic partnership’ but extortion”  The humor along with the brilliance accompanying this counterpoint made me as a reader not only laugh but completely with his point.  It kind of reminded me of when Senator Palin thought Africa was a country!  The point strongly convinces its reader the opinion it is trying to make against American politicians. 

To the actual movement of troops itself, the writer puts forward the theory that this is merely because Obama wishes to win the upcoming election.  The Lexington well structures the argument by explaining that since this was a war not very well supported by the people and that this action would remind Americans of all the other good decisions made by Obama towards terrorism—killing Bin Laden—that this will make him a popular candidate for the presidency.  Thus, this decision wasn’t for the good of America, but simply for the benefit of Obama himself according to the article.

              Looking at this article, there’s no question that such articles can easily control the news and history.  Reading the article, I couldn’t help but be convinced that Obama is a selfish president and that Bachmann is an idiot.  It so brilliantly places a democrat and republican as representations of selfish and idiotic politics in American society.  In short, I felt really embarrassed being an American.

YouTube: Clips from YouTube channels: Associated Press, AFP, C Daily News, Financial News Online, and also Clips made by people who have watched the news of the withdrawal of troops in Iraq: Styxhexenhammer666, hitcreatormusic, ministergraham, thepenrev.

Associated Press: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnbRAy5wG9I

AFP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwazrZa0pLQ

C Daily News: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uom7RNqg2lE

Financial News Online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uTW5eGtcUc

Styxhexenhammer666: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHZcgiH1fiU

hitcreatormusic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=espK71KdZqs

 ministergraham: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODn6K2sUcf0&feature=related

thepenrev: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vorK8VVWJfM

            Unlike news channels on television having host reporting the news and stating their political views, news channels on YouTube seem to be more direct toward the subject and audience. Those clips are relatively short and there is no description but the news itself. For instance, clips posted by Associated Press and AFP and C Daily News are pretty much same and as normal as they try to be. It also seems to distinguish itself from other media outlets like television, there is no point of views and simple accurate information, so it’s simply informative. In addition to that, if we as audience approach the subject with how camera tells story, we still get the same message that these channels want the news to be as direct, simple and clear as possible, medium shot of subject giving speeches for entire clip, until it ends.

            On the other hand, clips posted by other YouTube-er , like those I provided above, there is certainly more room for them to express. However, it seems like a lot of them are approaching this subject of troops withdrawal from Iraq with a morality way like family reunification and life saving. However, a handful of YouTube-ers do have different perspectives that for instance, they think that the reason why President Barack Obama announced troops withdrawal from Iraq is because he wants people to vote for him next year. Apparently, medium like YouTube is more open and is a good platform for people to express feelings and exchange ideas. Although their political ideas are not as formal as television or newspaper, these are still representation of politics. 

Media Outlet: News Paper (Specifically USA Today and Washington Post) 

Articals:

USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/story/2011-10-21/Obama-Iraq-full-withdrawal/50856070/1

Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/all-us-troops-to-leave-iraq/2011/10/21/gIQAUyJi3L_story.html

In the first News from USA Today, at the beginning it showed the reader the full report of the news which included the Overview, background and the details what the reader need to know about the news. However, in the second part, the USA Today started to address the opinion of the news. It did give us the public comments about the plan for both positive and negative side; however, USA Today is incline to agree with the negative side which stands disagree with the Full withdraw of the troops. I concluded from following evidences:

1.     The number of words address with the positive opinion is 177, but the number of words put on the negative side is 309, which is much more than the one puts on positive side.

2.     There are more people in the negative side than the positive side. There are three people from Democratic party comment to support the Full withdraw plan, but five people disagree with the plan.

3.     The News ends with a comments from Anthony Blinken, national security adviser to Vice President Biden that with the presenting of US Army force, the violence is reduced and the scarifies of Solders’ life and property is worthy. Which implies that the War of the Iraq was successful therefore the withdraw of Army seem to be little bit more early.

4.     Soon after the news report, the USA Today also posted an article which stands as the opponent of the plan to question the decision of Obama. The link of the article: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/10/Obamas-withdrawal-Can-Iraq-cope-556466/1

Therefore, we can see that the USA Today was standing on the position as Republican and used unbalanced opinions and tendentious ending to construct the news.

From the news addressed by Washington Post, we can see that they are standing in a position as supporter of Obama’s plan. By comparing with the one in USA Today, we can see that The Washington Post did not provide too much opinions from both sides, instead, it told us the reason why we should withdraw our troops from Iraq and the advantages from the plan. Also, it argues with the point made by Obama’s Republican rival- Mitt Romney which disagree with Obama’s plan.

In addition, the Washington Post also used some citations to support Obama’s Plan, for example, the statement by Moqtada al-Sadr who strongly opposes the U.S. presence in Iraq.

Therefore, we can see that the Washington Post’s strategy is: 1. Provide rich data from Obama’s plan to make it as reasonable as possible to people; 2. Refute the statement made by people who disagree with the plan; 3. Use implicit evidences to imply that the full withdraw is beneficial ( the statement from al-Sadr, the huge cost for oversee wars, the loss of solder’s lives, etc). 4. Follow-up with a critics which says the withdraw plan is correct:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/obama-is-right-to-stick-to-withdrawal-in-iraq/2011/03/04/gIQAh2kA4L_blog.html