Bias in The Media Article Analysis

PURPOSE: To criticize Trump's approach to student loans
DEVICES:

Pathos: The article uses fear to back up its argument. Statements like “his stance on student loans could spell trouble for liberal arts majors” at the beginning of the article start the reader off with a negative or fearful feeling about the topic despite no evidence having been presented at that point in the article. This creates a lens through which the reader sees the article and influences their opinions. This combined with the headline “This is Trump's stance on student loans - and it could hurt poor students” makes it seem to the reader like someone or even themselves is in imminent danger and needs to oppose the idea being explored by the article. This happens before any evidence or description of the problem is presented that can either bring substance to this fear or prove that it is baseless forcing the reader to be against the idea from the start.

Pronouns: This article focuses on Donald Trump's proposed policies before he was elected. The policies have not yet been carried out at the time of this articles writing but the article makes a point to contrast them with not only Hillary contains proposed policies but also Obama's policies and ideas. This groups the reader together with both Obama and Clinton as us vs them (the untested policies of Donald Trump and his supporters). This forces the reader to side with one or the other without defining what that means.

Argument Structure: the article first presents a policy advisor for Trump's campaign explaining the basic outline of his policy on student loans. After this, the article continued with an interview from the president of Washington college addressing those policies. The interview picks apart the proposed policy and talks about how it would disadvantage various areas of study especially for low-income students and change the way colleges look at admissions, favoring certain professions. The article ends after that, excluding any counterpoints that the policy advisor could have made as well as leaving the reader on a negative note regarding the topic and the policy.

BIAS:

Bias Through Omission: The article omits any positive outcome of the new policy. It only talks about its negative impact on a very specific type of student and area of study, how it “could spell trouble” for liberal arts students with debt. The subtext of the article is also biased. It mentions the plans of other presidential candidates which are free college policies and portrays them as “rejected” by Trump while being the superior alternative to Trump's policy. The article, however, does not mention the high cost or any of the negatives associated with free public college.

Bias Through Word Choice: The article uses consistently negative words or connotation when describing Trump's policy. It would be “expensive” and “troublesome” or “risky” while the alternative policy allows for “good jobs” and support for any career. This assigns a negative connotation to anything that relates to trump while painting his opposition in a positive light even without evidence for those feelings. The reader comes away with trump being negative and his opposition or alternative being good even without the context of the specific topic being discussed.