Meaningless words — CNN and Fox News
An analysis of the meaningless words and phrases used by CNN and Fox News every day.
As Americans, we hear about politics everyday, whether it be on the radio, the television, or on our phones. Often times, the news we rely on is extremely biased towards the left wing or the right wing. George Orwell states states this bias is common when trying to convince a particular audience of an opinion, “In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning.” He also states: “Many political words are similarly abused” and “each of them have several different meanings that cannot be reconciled with one another”. This is especially evident when analyzing how Fox News and CNN write their stories and address their viewers. In a particular case of discussing the progress of Trump’s wall, Fox News and CNN constantly use meaningless words and phrases to convince their viewers that Donald Trump is,is not making progress on and should,should not build the border wall. As the audience of these major media corporations, it is important that we distinguish both left and right wing opinions and identify the meaningless words and dead metaphors being used by these news services.
CNN’s video title states: “Trump posts misleading tweet on border wall.” The word “misleading” used in the title is a great example of a misleading word used. In this case, the word misleading does not contribute to the nes story and does not help explain the current event more effectively. This makes it evident that CNN, just by the title of their video, are already trying to convince their viewers of a certain opinion. Another example of a meaningless phrase used is: “Trump will replace the old wall with the new wall and then replace it with the further wall.” In this example, the news anchors are using a confusing phrase that could be interpreted in a number of different ways. By doing this, they are convincing their viewers that Trump is not making any progress on the wall, and the wall will take way too long to be built in a realistic timeline. One of the news anchors also uses a dead metaphor in the video: “you could see a chicken as a penguin but it’s still a chicken.” At this section of the video, the news anchors are discussing how Donald Trump is simply replacing fencing instead of actually building a wall. What the news anchor is trying to say is: the replacement of fencing could be seen as a new wall, but is really the maintenance of the old wall. This is a great example of a dead metaphor, as this phrase doesn’t make sense at all and doesn’t contribute to the discussion or the explanation of the news story. From these examples, it is evident that CNN is using meaningless phrases to convince their viewers there is no progress being made on Trump’s wall.
Fox News uses meaningless phrases to convince their viewers of arguments just like CNN does. In the Fox News video, titled: “President Trump plays hardball with the border wall”, they are praising Trump for his continued efforts to build a border wall and state that he is making progress. By using the word “hardball”, Fox News is using Orwellian language to convince their viewers that President Trump is working hard and making progress on the border wall. Fox News also praises President Trump by stating: “Border wall only humane and permanent solution to crisis at the border.” In this quote, Fox News is trying to convince their viewers that the border wall is the only “humane” solution to the problem of migrant children being separated from their families. In this case, Fox News is not taking into account the other side of the argument, as many families in Mexico and Central America are living in inhumane conditions to begin with. This is an example of fox news only showing their viewers one side of an argument. The Fox News anchor uses a dead metaphor much like the CNN news anchors use dead metaphors, “I think you hit the nail on the head”. Not only is this an example of a meaningless phrase, but also a dead metaphor that does not contribute to the discussion at all, makes the viewer confused and does not add to the explanation of the news story. Essentially, unlike CNN, instead of talking about the things Trump is doing wrong, they praise his supposed progress on the border wall without addressing left wing arguments.
The argument on the border wall is not the only example when CNN and Fox News use meaningless words and phrases to slant their viewers opinions a certain way, in fact, they do this in almost every story they create and publish. On their respective websites, Fox News and CNN constantly use meaningless phrases as titles for their news stories constantly: “GOP senator needs to treat Ford respectfully” (CNN), “Trump supporter erupts during debate over allegations” (CNN), “Divorce is hard enough on our children, why are our courts making it worse?” (Fox News). As viewers, it’s important we understand what we’re looking at, as well as understand both sides of an issue before we form an opinion. If not, we could be forming a false opinion based on articles, videos and news reports full of meaningless words and phrases.
