Abstract
The essay uses ethos, pathos, and logos to examine and compare two pieces published on Fox News and CNN regarding the Biden administration’s plan. Adam Shaw prepared the Fox News piece, while Alvarez, Collins, Liptak, and Goodman wrote the CNN piece. Both pieces are dated March 30, 2022, and they explore the political issue of Title 42 and Biden’s decision to abolish it. Based on the usage of the three rhetorical arguments, the choices were analyzed to indicate that the CNN story is more convincing and reliable. CNN gives more information on reporters than Fox News. In general, both pieces use emotional language and direct quotes in the text. The CNN article contains more facts and statistical data in terms of pathos.
Introduction
The essay analyzes and compares two articles published on Fox News and CNN about the Biden administration’s plan via ethos, pathos, and logos. The Fox News article was prepared by Adam Shaw, whereas the CNN article was written by Alvarez, Collins, Liptak, and Goodman. Both pieces were published on March 30, 2022; they discuss the political issue, namely Title 42 and the Biden’s decision to remove it. The selected were evaluated to demonstrate that the CNN article is more persuasive and reliable based on the use of the three rhetorical appeals.
Ethos
Essentially, ethos is focused on establishing the author’s legitimacy to comment on the issue. Grant (2019) states that ethos covers both the writer’s or speaker’s voice or manner and the character. The first article published in Fox News was written by Adam Shaw, Fox News Digital political correspondent who focuses on immigration (Fox News, n.d.). According to Watson (2022a), in February 2022, a study on the credibility of Fox News was conducted in the United States; twenty-one percent of respondents claimed Fox News was highly credible, while twenty-five percent indicated the reverse. Fox News was among the most controversial media sources regarding impressions of its trustworthiness rating and respondents’ political identification (Watson, 2022a). The opinions of readers matter when assessing the ethos of the articles.
The same survey was conducted to analyze the readers’ trust in CNN. According to the findings, twenty-three percent of responding people thought CNN was highly trustworthy, while twenty percent did not consider CNN as credible (Watson, 2022b). CNN is a significant news source in the United States; its material is devoured by hundreds of thousands of people every day, implying that the news channel needs to take responsibility (Watson, 2022b). The article from CNN was written by Priscilla Alvarez, Kaitlan Collins, Kevin Liptak, and Brenda Goodman. The authors have CNN pages with their bibliographical information and a list of articles, except Brenda Goodman. For instance, Priscilla Alvarez is a CNN correspondent who focuses on immigration politics and policy (CNN, n.d.). Additionally, she decided to work for CNN in January 2019. Alvarez was employed as a politics editor and writer at The Atlantic, where she documented the 2016 presidential election, the early years of Trump’s presidency, and U.S. immigration policy (CNN, n.d.). The CNN pages dedicated to reporters and correspondents include their photos and full biography.
Pathos
The articles can be compared based on pathos, or in other words, emotions. Grant (2019) suggests that the pathos of a message is concerned with the audience and, more precisely, which emotions should be elicited in this audience to motivate them to action. Moreover, pathos refers to the audience’s perceptions, interests, sentiments, age, and education. The Fox News article title is “Biden administration to end Title 42 border policy, despite fears of massive migrant surge: reports” (Shaw, 2022, para. 1). The reporter tried to capture readers’ attention via emotional aspect, focusing on the worries of a vast immigration inflow. In comparison, CNN’s article title is “Biden administration plans in May to end pandemic border restrictions blocking migrants, sources say” (Alvarez et al., 2022, para 1). The CNN reporters are specific and straightforward in conveying the key message in the title. The similarity between the headlines is that they mention that the articles rely on sources and reports, thus, intending to build trust between the channels and the target audiences.
Fox News included a Twitter post by Stephen Miller, the former Trump White House adviser. He wrote that repealing Title 42 would unleash a torrent of epic proportions (Shaw, 2022). The article significantly relies on various opinions of notable and influential people, such as Communications Director Kate Bedingfield, Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz, Arizona Democratic Senators Mark Kelly, and Kyrsten Sinem (Shaw, 2022). The article causes readers’ negative emotions toward the Biden administration’s intention to discontinue the use of the Title 42 public health order via such phrases: ‘the U.S. border crisis,’ ‘an influx of people,’ and ‘to throw caution to the wind.’ The reporter uses emotional language and includes direct quotes in the text.
The same patterns can be noticed in the CNN article; it has direct quotes and the use of emotional language. For example, Officials at the Department of Homeland Security are prepared for a worst-case scenario in which up to 18,000 individuals attempt to enter the border each day (Alvarez et al., 2022). According to one DHS official, the nature and extent of migration have fundamentally altered (Alvarez et al., 2022). The article emphasizes that Biden’s administration’s decision is crucial because the country is currently coping with an increasing influx, which the border patrol is attempting to mitigate as much as possible.
Logos
It is vital to analyze articles’ logos, precisely how they use facts, stories, or experts. The concept linked with the actual content of the written or spoken statement is known as logos (Grant, 2019). Fox News relied on the Wall Street Journal to demonstrate the Biden administration’s plan. Additionally, the article explains experts’ opinions through direct quotes. To present the data on migrant encounters, the reporter uses the Department of Homeland Security statistics. Shaw (2022) acknowledges that there were 164,973 migrant encounters in February. When compared to CNN, Fox News illustrated fewer statistics and facts. The CNN article is based on U.S. Customers and Border Protection data, The Department of Homeland Security, and federal law enforcement officials. Moreover, the information presented in the CNN article is more detailed than Fox News.
The content of the Fox News article includes a captivating title, followed by a short video, and concise written information. The brief history of the Title 42 is mentioned to educate readers. Shaw (2022) includes the opinions of influential people on the topic to persuade the audience. The screenshot of Stephen Miller’s Twitter post is placed in the middle of the article to capture attention. It is essential to mention that Fox News’ report is short and does not include as many details as CNN’s.
For instance, the CNN article illustrates more data, statistics, and links to the original sources. It analyzes the problem from both perspectives, namely U.S. citizens and migrants. Alvarez et al. (2022) state that intelligence assessments have revealed that migrants are in a “wait and see” mode, attempting to identify when they have the best chance of entering the United States. Thus, the reporters demonstrate the crucial information for migrants, such as migrants who are released in the United States may be enrolled in alternative jail programs for ongoing surveillance.
Conclusion
The CNN article is more persuasive and reliable than the Fox News article. CNN’s piece was created and evaluated by four different reporters and correspondents. Except for Brenda Goodman, the writers have CNN profiles with bibliographical information and a list of articles. Compared to Fox News, CNN provides more details about reporters. As a result, CNN makes greater use of ethos. In terms of pathos, the Fox News article’s headline is more emotive, enticing potential readers to follow the link. The CNN reporters are explicit and direct in expressing the title’s essential point. Both articles, in principle, employ emotive language and feature direct quotes in the text. The CNN piece has more facts and statistical data regarding pathos. In contrast, the Fox News article relies heavily on experts’ opinions mentioned in the text, including the Twitter post.
References
Alvarez, P., Collins, K., Liptak, K., & Goodman, B. (2022). Biden administration plans in May to end pandemic border restrictions blocking migrants, sources say. CNN. Web.
CNN. (n.d.). Priscilla Alvarez. Web.
Fox News. (n.d.) Adam Shaw. Web.
Grant, A. J. (2019). Ethos, pathos and logos: rhetorical fixes for an old problem: Fake news. In InSITE 2019: Informing Science+ IT Education Conferences: Jerusalem (pp. 081-091). Web.
Shaw, A. (2022). Biden administration to end Title 42 border policy, despite fears of massive migrant surge: reports. Fox News. Web.
Watson, A. (2022a). Credibility of Fox News in the United States as of February 2022. Statista. Web.
Watson, A. (2022b). Credibility of CNN in the United States as of February 2022. Statista. Web.