Presidential Debate News Story Analysis

News Analysis on the First Presidential Debate

Source Information      

Date:  October 4, 2012

What news organization (or individual) produced this?:  CNN

What is the type of news source?: Article

 

Content
 

What is the main headline?:  5 things we learned from the presidential debate

What facts (statistics, important events, etc.) are included?:   that 67%  of debate watchers said that Romney won. Also 1 in 4 said Obama was victorious.

Is anyone quoted? If so, who? What did they say?:   A lot of people were quoted in this article. One of which was Wolf Blizter, CNN's chief anchor of the network's political coverage. who said " He held his own against the president of the United States, and for a Republican challenger that's pretty good,". Another person who was quoted was Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior adviser to the former Massachusetts governor. who said "If it was a boxing match, it would have been called,I've got to believe that the heels on the president's shoes are worn down from being back on them for 90 minutes."

What information or ideas might have been left out?:    I didn't think that there was anything missing. I did think that there could have been more about what each candidate said but overall nothing missing.

 

Message

Who is the intended audience?: The intended audience is people who had watched the debate and wanted to learn more, or people who hadn't watched the debate and wanted an overview of it. 

Does the author seem to have an opinion? If so, what is it?:   Yes the author's seems to have an opinion. It is that Mitt Romney had won the debate. 

What is the tone of the source?:   The tone of the article is serious.

What words or phrases create the tone?: What made this article very serious was how direct it was. It didn't stray of the topic, it stuck to the point and conveyed the information clearly.

   

Is any one person or group discussed positively? Negatively?:  Mitt Romney is discussed positively in this Article by giving examples of what he had done correctly. Barack Obama was discussed negatively saying how he missed on a lot of opportunities to come back at the Massachusetts Governor. 

Wilson and the League of Nations' Legacy

1. In what ways was the League successful after World War I? Unsuccessful?    
  The league was successful after World War I in that they were able to resolve several disputes peacefully. An instance of that was when Sweden and Finland were fighting over a group of contested islands. Another instance of them working out was a humanitarian crisis in Turkey. They were also not so successful after World War I, when Poland seized a town in Lithuania the League proved unable to make Poland leave. Another example of the League failing was when Italy seized Fiume, the port that had gone to Yugoslavia, war broke out (the one thing they were supposed to stop from happening). 


2. Many historians suggest that the terms of the Versailles Treaty were a major cause of World War II. Support that argument. 
  One of the main reasons why the Versailles Treaty was a major cause of World War II was that the terms were so harsh on Germany. Because of this and the financial compensation given to the Victors (Which weakened Germany's economy, caused hunger in the country, and massive unemployment) Germany wanted to reassert themselves in world affairs and get back some of the land they had lost. The man who lead Germany through World War II, Adolf Hitler, came into power with the platform that acknowledged Germanys resentment and promised economic recovery. 


3. Some historians characterize U.S. policy during the interwar period as isolationist. What actions, described in the reading, could be called isolationist?         
 The action of making France pay back their World War I debts could be called isolationism. France had owed the United States back $10 billion dollars in war debts. They had thought that they would be relieved of that debt but instead the United States demanded the money to be paid back in full. Another example of the United States' isolationistic policies during the interwar period was the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924. These Acts limited the amount of Europeans allowed to immigrate and they declared Japanese immigrants as "aliens ineligible for citizenship.". 

4. How was U.S. foreign policy different in the Cold War from the interwar period?     
 During the Cold War the U.S. foreign policy was more multilateral rather than during the interwar period when it was more unilateral. An example of this is the United States allocating some $400 million dollars in aid to Greece and Turkey in 1947. Then some $13 billion dollars in aid to western European countries in the European Recovery Program, commonly know as the Marshall Plan. These were done because American leaders feared that the Soviets would fan the flames of conflict to gain influence in regions that were identified as vital to U.S. interests. Although that was essentially for U.S. interests it helped out other countries. 

5. What is "Wilsonian" thought? Why do some support it and some oppose it? 
 The "Wilsonian" thought is to have multilateralism and collective security in the U.S. government. Some oppose it because they say that his ideas have continued to fail throughout the century because humans are predisposed toward power politics rather than peaceful diplomacy and that the U.S. should focus on its mounting domestic problems. The others support it because it promotes free trade throughout the world, it supports nations and ethnic groups seeking statehood and protection from injustice.