There is no doubt that California is facing budget problems. A 26 billion dollar deficit calls for cuts in income, schools, public programs etc. So was Governor Schwarzenegger’s Twitter video appropriate during times like this?
In the New York Times, an article named “Knife In Hand, Schwarzenegger Tweets About Budget”, discusses California Governor Schwarzenegger’s video on twitter in which he holds a large knife in the beginning of the video to symbolize budget cuts; most likely intended for sense of humor purposes. The article is about half a page long and focuses mainly on what occurred in the governor’s video, such as the governor’s plan on taking a follower’s suggestion of autographing the 40,000 government vehicles to sell it for even more money; about a paragraph on what the governor’s plans are for California’s budget problem. The article also seems to be neutral on whether the video was appropriate.
In USA Today, an article named “Schwarzenegger takes on budget cuts with knife video” looks a lot like the article in the New York Times if not completely identical. Both articles are written by the Associated Press, which explains the almost identical content and focus of both articles.
In the Huffington Post, an article named “Why Is Arnold Schwarzenegger Brandishing A Gigantic Knife? (VIDEO)”, written by Jason Linkins, focuses mainly on the governor’s twitter video, specifically the part of the video where Governor Schwarzenegger holds the massive knife. The length of the article is about two paragraphs; the content of this article seems to be biased and very opinionated due to the writers input of his personal feelings against the governor’s decision to hold a knife at the beginning of the video. Also, I noticed that the writer made a grammatical mistake in his writing when he wrote this statement: “It looks to me as if, in the moment before this video begins, he's just looked at the crazy, massive knife and asked it, "Well, who's your Messiah NOW, knife?” (mistake underlined in red)
In BBC, an article named “Schwarzenegger Wields Knife on Twitter” also discusses the video made by the governor. However, unlike all the other newspapers mentioned in this post, the article is only a few sentences long with very minor details; it took me a while to find. The main focus of the article was the discussion of the knife and its symbolism for budget cuts. The article is similar to the articles in the New York Times and USA Today because the article does not take sides on the controversy on whether the video was appropriate or not. In BBC, there were longer articles that pertained to the real issue of coming up with a plan for the deficits in California, which gives me the impression that BBC cares more about the real issues, as we can see that more work was put into the article pertaining to California’s deficit than the article about Schwarzenegger’s video.
New York Times
USA Today
Huffington Post
BBC
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I personally think that's ridiculous that a governor can make a joke about a serious problem witha knife in his video. Being in a 26 million dollar debt as a state is not a joke at all and because he, shwarzenegger, already seems like a joke himself being a governor, that doesn't really help his situation. It's also quite funny that after reading a few articles it took you awhile to figure out what the actual article was about and the main point. At least BBC was able to capture the main point. Its outrageous what the news does or does not do.
ReplyDeleteyea most of the articles' main focus was the twitter video and not the 26 billion dollar deficit
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