Media

 The media has a major impact on people’s political views today. In today’s society, most people rely on the media to get their information. Each media platform has its own beliefs and biases which can influence the opinions of the audience. It is up to the audience to either pick what side they agree or disagree with. On November 15th there was a shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita. Nathaniel Berhow pulled out a pistol killing two students and injured 3 more students on campus. After using up most of the bullets he turned the gun on himself. As of right now, there is no known motive for the shooting. The two articles I chose is from BuzzFeed and the Washington Examiner. Each article has extremely different views and opinions and the shooting. Buzzfeed is more left-leaning while the Washington Examiner is a right-winged news source. Both news sources touch on the facts but then use their biases and opinions on why or why not gun control or regulations should be enforced.

The first article by, BuzzFeed called, “The California High School Shooting Is Now Driving Another Group Of Teen Gun Control Activists Because "The Future Of America Is Dying" goes in-depth about the shooting that took place at the school and how activists are fighting for gun control. This article is very left-winged which shows their biases by only expressing their point of view. To get the reader’s attention they use emotion to appeal to the audience. The article states, “Now, she has been that girl texting her mom she loves her, thinking it might be the last time. Though she cared a lot about gun control reform before Thursday.” This shows that the high school students who were at school during the time of the shooting had a lot of fear. This always the audience to get an understanding of what a scary moment this was for the students. To make this article more convincing they should give more facts about the gun regulations and the overall impact it would have. This article is convincing by using ethos which gets people to sympathize with the students making them agree with the gun regulations. 

The news article by The Washington Examiner is called, “The Santa Clarita shooting doesn’t support liberal's gun control agenda” talks about the event of the shooting and how this event does not justify the liberal’s agenda for gun restrictions. This news article can be seen as biased because it is very right-leaning with conservative opinions. The article states, “There’s no way a sick, disturbed, determined person would have been stopped by expanding background checks (which are already quite robust and cover almost 90% of gun purchases) when it would still inevitably be easy enough to have someone else purchase a firearm on their behalf, steal one, or buy one illegally on the black market.” Conservatives already believe that the background checks and everything else that goes in when buying a gun is enough and safe. They claim that this shooting would happen even if there were stricter laws on guns because of the assumption that he bought it illegally due to his young age. In this quote, they used statistics to show that the background checks are safe because it covers the majority of gun purchases in the United States. This article also brings up articles and quotes supporting the lefts side and counters their argument making it more convincing. The article could have included more facts or statics to prove their point of view.

I believe the Washington Examiner article was more convincing then buzz feed. This is because the Washington Examiner did not only examine their side but examined the lefts side and used evidence to counter it. Instead of using emotion to back up their claims they used facts which I find a lot more convincing.

 

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