Let's get started!

As part of my AP Gov class, I'm embarking on a ten-day media analysis project. To start off with, I'll discuss an article from online newspaper The Huffington Post.

"Nancy Pelosi: Democrats 'Stand Tall' For Obamacare Ahead of 2014 Elections." Sabrina Siddiqui
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/17/nancy-pelosi-democrats-obamacare_n_4292131.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

This article addresses Nancy Pelosi's statements on the Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare, asserting that Democrats in Congress continue to support the Affordable Care Act and will continue to support it during the 2014 midterm elections. The source is fairly short, about one-and-a-half screens long. It provides limited background information on the difficulties the government has faced in the rollout of the Affordable Care Act and some recent attempts at solutions, but does not explain the background or purpose of the act itself. This could lead to confusion towards the middle of the article, where the author discusses the renewal of healthcare plans. Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is the most-quoted speaker in the article, as the article is about her statements on the healthcare issue. Republican Representative Greg Walden is also briefly quoted. Although his status as a Republican (and thus, probably a member of the opposition to the Affordable Care Act) proves that the article provides at least a nominal example of a second perspective on the Affordable Care Act, the lack of varied arguments from this perspective suggests a bias towards Democrat opinions. Additionally, Walden is quoted not with his opinions about the strengths or failures of the Affordable Care Act, but on his view of the potential political fallout of the act. This further represents a limited perspective on the act. This article is an example of objective reporting.


I don't believe this article is an effective or informative source for readers wishing to learn about the Affordable Care Act. It contains little to no background information on the act. Instead, the first two paragraphs contain a list of the Affordable Care Act's faults, and most of the rest of the article contains direct quotes from Nancy Pelosi, although it also includes a short discussion of proposed solutions to the healthcare confusion and a short quote from Republican Greg Walden on the potential political effects of the Affordable Care Act. The article reads more like a summary of Nancy Pelosi's interview on Meet the Press than an objective piece of reporting designed to inform the public. Nancy Pelosi's statements, of course, represent a biased viewpoint towards the Democrats. In addition, most of the quotes the author of the article included sounded like political posturing designed to maintain the most possible influence for Pelosi's party: "You can't be knocked for a loop just because somebody is playing politics," she is quoted as saying, implicitly blaming Republicans for threats to the Affordable Care Act. Later, she continues: "[The] government was shut down because of a whim on the part of the Republicans, costing us $25 billion to our economy and 0.6 percent of our GDP growth." In conclusion, I felt that this article was both minimally informative and politically biased, and thus would encourage readers to seek elsewhere for for solidly educational sources about the Affordable Care Act.