Critical Thinking /News story - Research Paper Example

Critical Thinking Pertaining to a News Story For this particular paper, I decided to focus on the presidential news analysis of the 2 major cable news channels in America. These two networks are CNN News and Fox News. I paid particular attention to the coverage provided by the two leading opinion news shows of the networks as presented by Piers Morgan Tonight and Hannity respectively. The reason I chose these two programs was because Piers Morgan, being a British national hosting an American political talk show could provide what I felt would be an international point of view on the topic being discussed while Hannity could provide the traditional American point of view on the issues being discussed which in this case, was the presidential debated between the current Democrat re-electionist president Barack Obama and the Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

Since everyone has been discussing what a debacle the debate was for Pres. Obama, I was interested in finding out what the traditional politicians would have to say about the issue. How would they spin what was obviously a huge campaign error on the part of the president in order to try and make the negative effect something positive that could actually help his campaign. Interestingly, both Piers Morgan and Sean Hannity shared the same point on view on the issue, that the president will have a problem trying to live down the effects of his lackluster debate performance.

Both Morgan and Hannity provided the viewers with representatives from the Democrat, Republican, and undecided sectors of the voting society in order to provide the viewers with what they hoped to be a non-partisan and unbias review of the performance of the debaters. I am pleased to see that Piers Morgan, being the Brit that he is, did not get his hands into the political arena by showing his inclination towards any one political affiliation. Rather, he discussed the performance of both men and presented what he felt were the positive and negative performances on their part and allowed the guest commentator to share his point of view, whether he agreed with it or not.

As far as Piers Morgan was concerned, it did not matter that he was on a publicly identified Democrat supporting news channel. All that mattered to him, was to air the opinion of the people and then allow the others to decide on their own regarding certain aspects of the debate. On the other hand Hannity, being on a strictly Republican news channel, and himself a staunch democrat failed to discuss the debate in a controlled and non- political manner. He seemed to bask in the failures of Barack Obama at the debate and gleefully discussed the strengths of Mitt Romney with his panel.

If you happened to be a Democrat sitting in with his team of mostly Republican spin doctors then you were out of luck. Of the two news programs, I would have to say that I leaned more towards Piers Morgan's show as the more credible of the two for the reasons I have previously mentioned. His British nationality provided him with the opportunity to view the debate from an outsider's point of view and gave him the space that he needed in order to accurately discuss the events as he analyzed them with his guests.

This was something that I did not get from Hannity and wished that I had seen even a tinge of in order to have given his discussion panel a sense of credibility while pretending to be non-partisan. Where Piers Morgan was calmly discussing the debate with his guests, Hannity was high strung and emphatic about the way the debate unfolded. He was not cruel or rude, but you could really sense that he enjoyed bragging about the lack of debate skills that Pres. Obama displayed at the event. I believe that the attitude of the network and the writers could be clearly seen in the way that Morgan and Hannity handled their talk shows and their guests.

Piers Morgan allowed his speakers to finish speaking before he spoke, unless the speaker was obviously grasping at straws and needed his help to and what could have been a very uncomfortable situation for the speaker. While Hannity on the other hand, was constantly cutting off his Democrat representatives on the panel, barely allowing them to reason out once they disagreed with him. He showed how bias he was towards the Republican party due to the marked difference in treatment of his panelists.

Where he was rude and short tempered with the Democrats, he had nothing but patience and lighthearted banter with the Republicans. Basically, both commentators did well on their respective shows. It is just that Hannity could not let go of his political colors in order to create a more balanced coverage of the presidential debate on his news program. That is why I believe that Piers Morgan Tonight did the better job of dissecting the presidential debate. Sources CNN. (Producer). (2012, October 4) .

Piers morgan tonight. (Television broadcast). New York, NY: CNN News Fox (Producer). (2012, October 4) Hannity. (Television broadcast). New York, NY: Fox news.