The News Analysis Essay is an examination of media messages, with a focus on the news.  We often get our information about current events on social media, watching/listening to the news, or by reading the news websites.  How does our media environment shape our attitudes? This essay will help us to look at this question. This essay is worth 25% of the final grade.

Here is the assignment:

Watch and take notes of any one news source for one week, either on television or on line.  You can choose from CNN, FOX, MSNBC, Vox, or CBS, NBC, ABC, PIX11, The Washington Post, New York Times, NJ.com, NPR, or any other source but please check with me if you choose one not listed here.

The purpose of this essay is to look for and describe attitudes about race and  class that may be seen in real time, in everyday context. Here is the topic question:

What are the main ways in which people of different races, genders and class are depicted on the news? 

Find at least three news stories that illustrate what you see about race, gender and class divisions, and summarize these stories.  Study the stories in terms of the course themes you see, and organize your essay to address each of the following questions:

  1. Which news source did you choose?  Who is giving the news?  What are the race/genders of the news anchors or hosts?
  2. Give a brief summary of each of the three news reports you chose to analyze. Did you notice a pattern in the 3 stories? If so, what was it?
    3.  How are people of different races presented in the stories you chose to describe?  Which people of which races got the most news coverage? What kinds of news did you see about each?
    4.  Can you tell the class of the people in your selected news stories? How? What clues are there with which you can tell?
    5.  Was gender mentioned in your stories? Which people of which gender got the most news coverage?  What kinds of news stories were about women, and what kinds of storieswere about men?
    6.  Conclude with your opinion of what you have seen during the week.  Did you see different patterns?  What were they?  Did anything surprise you about what you observed?  What did you notice?

Important Instructions:

Include a description of which news broadcast you watched, including the gender and race of the anchor(s). You must discuss at least three different news stories.

You are STRONGLY encouraged to discuss more than three stories if you need to, but you may not use fewer  than three.
IMPORTANT:     Do not quote Wikipedia!  In researching this paper you may of course refer to Wikipedia to familiarize yourself with the topic, and for your own information, but Wikipedia it is NOT an appropriate source for college level work.  You should  NOT quote Wikipedia, Dictionary.com, Encyclopedia Britannica or any online encyclopedia.  However, you are encouraged to look for original reporting, online magazines and/or news reports.  Those are acceptable sources.I’d be happy to look at a rough draft of your essay at any time before the due date; please don’t hesitate at all to ask for my help with this assignment.

VERY IMPORTANT:   You must be careful to PROOFREAD as well as spell check.  You know which typos are the worst! ;-)Essay Length, Style, and How it is Graded:

The essay should be at least 4 pages long and no more than 5 pages, double spaced.    Be sure that your font is no larger than size 12, and that your margins are no larger than 1″ (inch).  If you choose to use the font Courier New, your font size should be no larger than 10.