Privacy in the Digital Age: Reporting on Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance in court
In early April, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was slated to appear before Congress for two days in order to personally answer questions regarding the strength of Facebook’s privacy policy.
For my analysis of a moderate media source, I am using The Wall Street Journal. This daily newspaper is widely influential and popular among both American conservative social circles and American liberal social circles. Because The Wall Street Journal has the reputation of being a thorough and reputable source among both political parties alike, I selected this publication as my moderate media source.
To reflect on Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony, The Wall Street Journal published an article titled, “How Did Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Do? Crisis-Management Experts Weigh In.” In this short article, authors John Simmons and Vanessa Fuhrmans outline the reactions of five crisis consultants to Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance in court.
The authors of this article used five crisis consultants from five different crisis management organizations for their report. By selecting professionals from a variety of organizations, The Wall Street Journal allows readers to hear a mixture of opinions surrounding one common situation.
The Journal selected the president of Bernstein Crisis Management, the founder of public-relations consultancy Mulberry & Astor, a professor in Crisis Communication Leadership at the University of Georgia, the CEO at Lexicon Communications Corp., and the head of Temin & Co, a reputation and crisis-management consultancy as the sources of their report. The titles that the authors attach to the sources accredited each representative as being highly knowledgeable on the matter.
With regards to the quotes, I believe that the The Wall Street Journal chose an unbiased and appropriate selection to publish; each quote differed greatly from the next. One would discuss Zuckerberg’s physical behavior during the testimony, while another would analyze his verbal communication skills. The article gave a considerable amount of information on the subject from a variety of opinion which is important in creating unbiased journalism.
For my analysis of a left-wing media source, I selected Slate. Slate is a digital magazine that has reported on news coverage from an American liberal perspective for roughly 22 years. Although this publication self identifies as a “general interest publication offering analysis and commentary about politics, news, business, technology, and culture,” it is widely known for its left-wing political ideology.
From The Slate’s article titled, “The Senate Fought Mark Zuckerberg, and Mark Zuckerberg Won” by Will Oremus, we can identify the ways in which an extreme-left news publication reports on Mark Zuckerberg’s current political situation.
From the very start of his article, author Will Oremus begins to personally rate the success of Mark Zuckerberg in court. The subtitle of the article reads, “The Facebook CEO charmed, evaded, and sometimes misled his way through the committee-hearing gauntlet.” Instead of delivering an unbiased, factual recount of the testimony, the author evaluates and characterizes Zuckerberg’s performance in court.
Throughout the rest of his article, Oremus uses diction that is very telling of his own personal standpoint to outline Zuckerberg’s court appearance. For example, he begins with this recount: “Summoned to testify about Facebook’s role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, he (Zuckerberg) shrewdly gamed a flawed format to wriggle out of tough questions, while taking advantage of bad ones to expose the lawmakers’ shaky understanding of his company’s products.” In this phrase alone, we can understand Oremus’ negative opinion of Zuckerberg. Through his use of language, Oremus poses Zuckerberg as an individual who schemes his way out of messy situations in which he is most likely at fault.
Not only does Oremus use specific language throughout his article to promote his own beliefs, but he also uses sentence structure to relay opinion. For example, he answers a question he poses himself in the article when he asks, “Did we learn, at least, that Facebook can’t be trusted to fully protect its users’ data, no matter how many times it apologizes and promises to do better?” He answers, “Maybe, but anyone who didn’t already know that just hasn’t been paying attention.” In good journalism, I do not believe biased questions should be asked of readers, but instead, factual and unbiased information should naturally provoke questions from readers.
For my analysis of a right-wing media source, I selected The Blaze. The Blaze is a conservative news and entertainment network that advertises its publications as “Authentic. Unfiltered. Fearless.” On their site, readers can identify headers that read, “ Stories That Matter Most” and “Our Perspective On Stories That Matter,” which accurately separate the publication’s right-wing perspective from the standpoints of general media publications.
Using the publication’s article titled, “Facebook users to get notification if their information was part of Cambridge Analytica scandal” we can work to identify how a right-wing media outlet reports on Mark Zuckerberg’s current political situation. Through this article, Mike Ciandella reassures online readers that they will receive notifications as a result of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Throughout his article, Mike Ciandella remains primarily unbiased in order to report on Cambridge-Analytica related Facebook notifications. He states that according to reports, which he provides a link to, “Facebook users whose data was shared with Cambridge Analytics will be alerted with a notification.” Furthermore, he reports that “users whose data was not affected will still get a link explaining how their data is used and how to adjust their privacy settings.”
He follows this style of unbiased reporting throughout the rest of his short article, using specific dates, specific statistics with appropriate links, and unbiased diction to let users know how they can see about if their data has been used.
However, Mike Ciandella is not necessarily uncovering the story himself. He is simply reporting on information that has already been published by other investigative reporters. Although he may be bringing new information to light for readers of Slate, he is not necessarily reporting from the primary source of information. He is, in turn, remaining unbiased — which is commendable — in relaying information that has already been published by alternative secondary sources.
The Wall Street Journal
Slate
https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/the-senate-fought-mark-zuckerberg-and-mark-zuckerberg-won.html
The Blaze
