CNN is a cable news network owned by Time Warner. The world headquarters is in Atlanta, GA. A class action lawsuit was filed in 2011 against CNN by the Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness (GLAD). Because CNN opted not to include closed-captioning for their short video clips, GLAD claimed that CNN was violating California’s Civil Rights and the Disabled Persons Act (DPA). In 2012 a magistrate judge ruled against CNN’s appeal to dismiss the case. CNN argued that the lawsuit be dropped due to California’s anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) statute. The statute “provides a means to dismiss a complaint arising from activity exercising free speech or petition rights at an early stage” (Carter, 2014). The magistrate denied the request reasoning being that GLAD’s request for closed-captioning for their short clips did not involve free speech (Carter, 2014) On February 5, 2014 the 9th Circuit Court sided in favor of CNN in regards to the class action law suit. GLAD was unable to provide proof of discrimination on CNN’s part. A panel of three judges from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a magistrate judge’s ruling that required CNN’s website videos to provide closed-captioning. It is an issue for the company because it called into question their legal and ethical obligations. Media content is a powerful tool in shaping how and what to think about an issue. Media coverage of CNN’s dispute is both positive and negative. There are obvious differences between my two chosen news articles.
The first article, written by Terry Carter, grabs your attention with the headline “9th Circuit tosses part of lawsuit against CNN demanding closed-captioning on its web videos.” Word choice of “tosses” im...
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...ic inaction occurs by the company’s silence. This case will set the precedent for future issues regarding “virtual spaces” and whether or not they are included in equal access to “places of public accommodation” (Egelko, 2014).
Both articles emphasized different aspects regarding CNN issue. The first article reported the facts from a legal standpoint and did not hold CNN accountable for their decision. The second article emphasized the lack of media content CNN is choosing to withhold from the deaf community. Although the court’s decisions to negate the discrimination claim a positive outcome for CNN, the issue remains on what CNN’s plans are to remedy the issue. With the case still under consideration, CNN should be thinking of possible solutions. Internet users are in abundance. The timing of this win is coincidental with reports of CNN’s low ratings.
Wang’s studies have shown that news industries are now tabloidizing news because it elicits the attention of their viewers. Now the only thing considered as “entertainment” in the news is “crimes, accidents, and disasters”. Wangs writes “News that bleeds seem to still lead the primary broadcasts” (Wang 722). People nowaday only tune in when a disaster has occurred and anything other that is not “interesting”. Unfortunately, people would rather watch Isis in action then heard about Obama releasing innocent victims from prison. The reporter in “Gray Noise” proves Wang’s words true when he records on his lens about a mother who had just lost her
Today is the day of the trial for the Faden vs Walt Disney, I am Mister Faden's attorney. This should be an easy case to win, its so obvious that Mister Faden’s video was fair, that doesn't mean I won’t take it seriously, just that i am confident. When i arrive at the courtroom my client is already seated along with most of the jury and the judge. As i am sitting there i can’t help but to think about how ironic this entire case is, the video itself was about copyright, its almost as if he wanted this to happen. Its time to make our opening statements, defendants are up first. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client is innocent, and has not committed any crimes against Disney. As i am sure you know, Mister Faden made a video concerning
“NEW YORK TIMES v. UNITED STATES.” The Oyez Project. llT Chicago-Kent College Of Law, n.d. Web. 5 Dec. 2013.
Michael Parenti (2002) declares media in the United States is no longer “free, independent, neutral and objective.” (p. 60). Throughout his statement, Parenti expresses that media is controlled by large corporations, leaving smaller conglomerates unable to compete. The Telecommunications Act, passed in 1996, restricted “a single company to own television stations serving more than one-third of the U.S. public,” but is now overruled by greater corporations. (p. 61). In his opinion, Parenti reveals that media owners do not allow the publishing of stories that are not beneficial and advantageous. Parenti supports his argument very thoroughly by stating how the plutocracy takes control over media in multiple ways: television, magazines, news/radio broadcasting, and other sources.
...wpoints. Such regulations were undoubtedly a form of prior restraint and consequently they were in direct violation of broadcasters First Amendment rights. As this was a unanimous decision, there are no records of dissenting views from the Justices. The only dissenting views were that of the Plaintiff, Red Lion Broadcasting Co.
Over the centuries, the media has played a significant role in the shaping of societies across the globe. This is especially true of developed nations where media access is readily available to the average citizen. The media has contributed to the creation of ideologies and ideals within a society. The media has such an effect on social life, that a simple as a news story has the power to shake a nation. Because of this, governments around the world have made it their duty to be active in the regulation and control of media access in their countries. The media however, has quickly become dominated by major mega companies who own numerous television, radio and movie companies both nationally and internationally. The aim of these companies is to generate revenue and in order to do this they create and air shows that cater to popular demand. In doing so, they sometimes compromise on the quality of their content. This is where public broadcasters come into perspective.
Fox News is constantly being bombarded with accusations of media bias, furthermore, a number of different instances of have occurred which question the validity of Fox News (Groeling). These instances occur throughout normal news broadcasts. Some of the more recent, and grossly biased broadcasts, were from the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. Historically the Fox News Channel is known to lean heavily to the right, or on the republican spectrum. President Barrack Obama’s political party is widely known to the public as being democratic. Statistically, to this day according to studies over 17 million households receive some form of the Fox News Channel (Auletta). The Fox News Channel is published through a number of different channels to its viewers. These channels include: Television, radio, newspaper, internet and more increasingly electro...
Taras examines the commitments and values of CBC with the Canadian government and the citizens. He looked at a particular case of when CBC clashed with the government, and how CBC struggled to keep their TV programs running (Taras, pp.4-5). Next he talked about how the media industry is being taken controlled by powerful corporation and claims that PSB have the responsibility to protect the minorities (Taras, p.6). Subsequently, Taras discussed the ups and downs CBC had gone through until this day. Lastly, Taras explores the complex and intimate relationship between public broadcasters and the government; how they take advantage of each other to accomplish their goals. Ultimately, Taras believes that PSB will continue to have an impact in society despite living in a generation of digital media.
The case that I chose to analyze is Reno v. ACLU. It is the first Internet related U.S. Supreme Court case ever to be decided. Seven of the justices found the argued provisions of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) were unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The court found that the Internet is similar to a shopping mall or library not a broadcast medium as the government refered to it. The majority opinion for this case was that the Internet is a unique marketplace for ideas. The ruling states that while there is a large amount of pornographic material out there, it normally isn’t come across on accident. They stated that the CDA already holds back a good amount of speech that is alright for adult to adult conversations, which they do have a constitutional right to receive. While they recognize the CDA efforts to protect children from harmful speech and pornographic material, it still does not justify the unnecessarily broad suspension of speech. The final outcome was that they found that what the CDA was trying to do would violate speakers messages who are rightfully protected under the First Amendment.
The documentary zeroes in on the politicizing of Fox's reporting, from daily memos deciding on what topics to focus on and which to avoid all together. It discusses the trivializing of the "Fox News Alert," originally conceived as an attention-grabbing device for earth-shaking events, but soon used to report the daily movements of J-Lo and Martha Stewart. The filmmaker also uses amusing rapid-fire compositons of different aspects of the network to make a mockery of such claims as "We Report, You Decide" and "Fair and Balanced" (the network's slogans).
Reno v. ACLU is the 1997 landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court providing sweeping free speech protection on the Internet. Understandably, commentators from legal and political spheres have discussed the case in terms of familiar First Amendment issues, including precedents from telecommunications law, the long-recognized exception to free speech for "obscenity," and concern for the exposure of children to inappropriate materials.
Both CNN and Fox News influence these immense populations with how each utilize pathos, ethos and logos in the topics discussed during the broadcasted show. For example, Fox News 's audience seems to be primarily conservative, while CNN’s audience seem to be more liberal (Engel). So each network’s stories “focus on the issues that” conservatives or liberals “want to watch and talk about” (James). These topics are used to develop a more conservative or liberal fan base in the respective news networks. As the dominant news network on cable television, Fox News impacts the greatest quantity of citizens, bringing in an audience of over two million for primetime (James). Therefore, Fox News influences the largest percentage of Americans listening to news networks by effectively using these manipulative literary techniques. However, CNN has a younger audience than Fox News (Carter), which contributes to CNN’s audience growing from 350,000 a night, in 2013 (Agee), to 629,000 viewers a night (James). CNN and Fox News compete with each other to influence the greatest amount of people and the public’s opinion of current events. Each network appeals to pathos, logos and ethos differently and similarly to coax the greatest amount of listeners each night.
In his editorial "Words Triumph Over Images," Curtis Wilkie blames today’s media for being “reckless” and “a mutant reality show”. He believes that television and radio are “unfiltered”, which causes the quality of journalism for newspapers to be unmatched. Yet, it is unfair to label all media that is not print as lesser because the quality of any media relies on the viewers and the individual journalists, and in drastic situations like a hurricane, reporters may have many road blocks. Any of these aspects can affect the quality of journalism, which invalidates Curtis Wilkie’s claim.
Through manipulation and lies, media manages to modify objective news into biased news in order to convince the public of what the media wants them to believe. The article, “How the Media Twist the News”, by Sheila Gribben Liaugminas discusses the major influence that news has on readers based on their choice of stories and words. “How the Media Twists the News” has borrowed from multiple other texts such as the books like Public Opinion and Liberty and News, news magazine writers such as Ruderman, and news networks like CBS through Bias, A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News and CNN to make her arguments valid and prove that the news is biased and that it does influence readers significantly because of it.
Zelezny, J. (2011). Communications Law: Liberties, Restraints, and the Modern Media. Boston, MA: Wadsworth-Cengage Learning.