Steven Filippi Idea Journal: Comparison Between 2 Media Sources

On February 26, 2011, after almost two straight weeks of protests in Libya, and especially after recent days of intense violence and bloodshed on the part of the ensuing government crackdown, President Obama has finally called for dictator, Colonel Muammar Gadhafi, to step down. The White House issued a statement, which was a summary of what Obama had said over the phone to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It read, “When a leader’s only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now.” This statement came very soon after the United States pulled its remaining citizens out of Libya on a ferry; until that point, the United States had remained silent on the issue of Gadhafi stepping down. The statement was praised by the leader of an interim government that has been established in one of the eastern Libyan cities under the control of the rebellion. Although the United States does not have information regarding the power or numbers of Mustafa Abdel-Jalil’s supporters, the Libyan Ambassador to the US, Ali Aujali has vouched for him. Both the New York Post, a daily newspaper from New York City, and The Huffington Post.com, an online blogging site, covered this story, and while both articles included the basic events that occurred and reasons for the policy change, they had some major differences as well.

The New York Post is owned by media conglomerate News Corp., which in turn is owned by Rupert Murdoch, a major conservative voice in world politics. Therefore, it has somewhat of a right-wing spin to its news stories, headlines, and especially its editorials. The article, “O: Time to go, Mo: Prez calls on Khadafy to step down,” starts off discussing President Obama’s sudden reversal in foreign policy, using phrases such as “the strong words from Obama, who had previously stayed mum on the Mideast madman’s fate” and “before the president’s call for Khadafy to end his...stronghold on the...nation, US officials had called only for an end to the bloodshed. More than 1,000 people are thought to have died since the rebellion began.” The article appeals to those who had been critical of the President’s previous decisions regarding the crisis. The article also goes beyond talking about US policy and discusses Khadafy’s attempt to keep control of his country as well as the recent victories of rebel forces. The article says, “Rebel forces hold Benghazi, as well as a long swath of the country’s 1,000-mile coastline. They also captured a general and a soldier from an airbase in Tripoli,” before mentioning that the United Nations had placed sanctions on the country and called for Khadafy to be charged with war crimes. The New York Post article also uses a strange spelling of the Libyan dictator’s name. Instead of the normal “Muammar Gadhafi,” the paper uses “Moammar Khadafy,” which seems to be a more American form of spelling his Arabic name.

The Huffington Post.com is a liberal blogging site founded by Arianna Huffington in the 1990s. Its articles are the complete opposite of the New York Post’s as they are written by those with political views from the opposite side of the political spectrum. Thus, the article “Libya Protests: Obama Says Muammar Gaddafi Must ‘Leave Now’” presents a much stronger case for Obama staying quiet and then acting tough at the time of the article’s writing. The article uses the phrasing “Ratcheting up the pressure,” “until now, US officials have held back from such a pronouncement, insisting it is for the Libyan people to decide who their leader should be,” and “the administration upped its pressure a day after it froze all Libyan assets in the US that belonged to Gadhafi, his government, and four of his children.” The article explains how Obama waited for all of the remaining Americans in Libya to be removed by a ferry and airplane before issuing his statement. He also called for the world to speak with one voice against Gadhafi, conferring with world leaders and sending Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Geneva. The Huffington Post.com article also goes into a lot more depth about the US change in policy, other countries’ reactions such as France, an overview of the rebellion in the country, and information regarding the United Nations’ response. The article is about double the length of the New York Post’s, as it was released online and did not have to fit the physical page of a newspaper. It was also written on February 26, the same day that Obama issued his statement. The New York Post’s article was written later that night but it was published the following day on the 27th of February.

The New York Post and The Huffington Post.com are both leading sources of news in the United States of America. They are two different mediums and are of two different political ideologies. Therefore, while they may report the same events, they tell the stories quite differently.

Works Cited

Klein, Melissa, and Tim Perone. “O: Time to go, Mo. Prez calls on Khadafy to step down.” New

York Post. 27 Feb. 2011. Print.