American government media bias

Immediately after taking over the Whitehouse, Trump’s administration imposed a travel ban on citizens from Iran, Somalia, Libya, Syria, North Korea, and Venezuela. Trump attributed the increasing rates of terror attacks on US soil and Citizens of the United States on failure by the previous administration to curb illegal immigration (Shaw). Furthermore, Trump believed that Illegal immigration is a significant contributor to the increase in criminal activities such as drug and human trafficking, gang-related violence, murder, rape and insecurity at the country's borders. Besides, they believed that illegal immigrants not only took away American jobs from American people but were also a burden to the federal government. Consequently, Trumps administration sought to cut down the number of immigrants/ refugees allowed into the country as a way to address national security concerns.

An example of Sensationalism is using clickbait headlines. The headline of the news article by CNN news source has been intentionally designed to draw public curiosity based on the fact that the source has angled the story from the family point of view. The headline reads “They made it to the US. But as the country lets in fewer refugees, will the rest of their family ever arrive?” CNN News (Kann). Despite the nature of the problems the country is facing due to immigration and refugees issues, sympathizers, majorly liberals such as liberal Democrats who are against some of the immigration policies by the Trump administration that lead to separation of families will be appealed to by such a click-bait headline.

Bias by Story selection Bias by Story selection involves a patter where news stories that coincide with the agenda of either the left or right wing are highlighted or ignored (Kaye& Thomas, 604-623). A Quote from the CNN article reads, “As the US increased its vetting of refugees, the number admitted from some countries dropped dramatically in the fiscal year 2018, which ended September 30. Meanwhile, admissions ticked up slightly from a few countries, like Russia (Kann). ” CNN News. The idea that the United States is preventing the entry of refugees from other countries, while admissions from countries such as Russia ticked up is intended to promote a left-wing Agenda. " Lately, Trump’s foreign policy has been critiqued for secluding the USA from the affairs of the rest of the world.

Thus, such a statement seems ironic, more so a lie. However, CNN has intentionally omitted parts of Pompeo’s speech to suit their left-wing agenda. As reported by Fox News, this is what Pompeo said, “Pompeo said even with the cut, the U. S. will continue to be the most generous nation in the world when it comes to immigration…. (Shaw)”As it stands the opposite may be true. Some argue that America is the least generous country when it comes to immigration. Statistically, countries that take in most refugees are Germany and Spain. Also, the problem of immigration begun even before Obama took office. Stories by media outlets have motives behind them; thus, may be designed to credit or discredit points of views based on which side they lean towards (Eberl et al.