What's Happening With The Supreme Court
Over the course of the past week, there has been a lot of news made surrounding the Supreme Court. President Biden announced a 36-person, bipartisan commission to study the issue of expanding the court, setting term limits for justices and looking for pros and cons to each idea. This commission will not even go so far as to make recommendations, it is simply an exploratory affair. Next, four democratic congressional members introduced a two-page bill to add four justices to the Supreme Court, which Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says she likes the way Biden is handling it, and will not support the bill at this time. Let's take a look at how Fox News is covering this fairly mild new story in contrast with New York Times coverage linked above.
Fox Appears to be drumming up fear with this front page of their website, suggesting that democrats will be "breaking" the Supreme Court, and additionally repealing the filibuster to do it. Of course, both of these claims are not true in any way. For starters, as the New York Times pointed out, Nancy Pelosi has shown no interest in this bill that would, according to Fox, "break" the supreme court. Secondly, the constitution, which Fox so often claims to love, does not specify a number of judges to sit on the court, instead it gives that power to congress, which seems to be exactly what these congress people are trying to do. Again, this is all without the support of democratic leadership anyways. Thirdly, the threat of the repeal of filibuster is also a completely empty threat, again because certain democrats are standing in the way. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has said often and loudly that he will not support any repeal of the filibuster.
So what is Fox News doing here? This is such a simple scare tactic put forth to divide Republicans from the reality of what is happening. I will give them some credit in that the article linked behind this headline paints a wildly different picture of what is happening here. It does mention that there is hesitancy about the bill among democratic leadership and from Joe Biden. But why are there such discrepancies between what they are saying to draw people in, and what they are actually putting in their articles? Are they not concerned that this seems like a huge issue of credibility? Additionally, why is McConnell's efforts at blocking certain nominees, and pushing through others at the last second referred to as "reforming" the court in this same article? The same language could easily be applied to what this bill is proposing, however they are very clearly making a semantic choice that influences their readers.
It is so interesting how you can get two completely different news stories about the same topic, depending on where you are reading the information.
ReplyDeleteClearly, Fox is intending to provoke fear and confusion by blowing the issue out of proportion by using thematic language. Fox has always been suspected to be pro-republican, with the former President Trump terming it as his favorite channel. In this post, it is actively demonstrating its politically-themed reporting because its message is clearly biased. You have mentioned that it appears to be drumming up fear and posting such opinionated information on the front page of their website. It raises credibility concerns over the independence and so called "impartiality" of media houses. It feels like Fox is also trying to distract the audience from a certain fact by creating this fake façade. Unlike Donald Trump, who was a newbie in national politics, Joe Biden is a Veteran who has aged in the system and understands it better than most Presidents that American has ever had. Change is the only constant in society, and the behavior of Fox News shows that the Republicans are increasingly afraid of it. It would be interesting to see what they would write if the committee's mission was to recommend changes to the court. While it has the freedom of expression, using phrases such as “breaking up the supreme court” should be unacceptable because there is no logical reason justifying the making of such remarks. More insight is critical to address even the idea of such absurd notions. The direction that this media house is taking is disturbing.
ReplyDeleteI find it so hypocritical of the republican party to condemn this, but when RBG passed away, they couldn't wait to fill her seat before Trump got out of office. Fox news reports are highlighted by ignorance, fear, and hate. I personally don't have too much of an opinion on court packing, but I do have an opinion on the idiocy and hypocrisy prevalent in the Republican party. Our government and our leaders have become so polarized, as well as the news outlets reporting on them.
ReplyDeleteThis here is a great example of the outcomes of biased news reporting, it leads to the spread of misinformation. Fox is trying to create a negative narrative around this topic by using confusing language that they know will easily be misinterpreted. Thus, inciting negative attitudes towards this topic from the jump. As a result, creating more division between Democrats and Republicans on an issue that is not even truthful or real at the moment. It is very interesting how simple changes by certain media outlets to a headline on the same story can have such rippling effects in public opinion.
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