Politics and the English Language

12/03/19

Politics and the English Language

Two different media outlets discuss the situation Trump is in, using different wording but giving the same information. The New York Times Article, “Trump’s Lawyers Won’t Participate in Impeachment Hearing on Wednesday” seems to not use too many words that spiral the reader away from the actual point. Everything is explained thoroughly using simple words, and isn’t repeated. However, The Washington Post commented on the same situation, in their article “Republicans draft counter-report as Democrats release witness list for Wednesday hearing”, using some phrases that didn’t actually have correct meaning behind them. This article also repeated a few things, making it excessive and just writing to make the article longer. For example, the phrase “quid pro quo” was used and put in quotation marks, without any context, making it hard to understand. Their statement was more in favor of Trump, defending the idea that he was put in an unfair situation, without actually stating it straightforward. Furthermore, the New York Times article has more of an informational way of getting the point across. They show evidence like tweets and quotes, while the other article makes statements but doesn’t give any context. The Washington Post article didn’t seem to show that it followed the question “What am I trying to say?” Because in reality, it was just summarizing and the repeating of other words that made it really vague and extensive. This shows us that different sources of media can portray the same situation with different feelings and thoughts on it, twisting situations to be in favor of someone else.

Articles:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/politics/impeachment-hearings-live-updates/2019/12/02/1ef96062-14f2-11ea-9110-3b34ce1d92b1_story.html%3foutputType=amp

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/01/us/politics/trump-impeachment-hearing.html