After having spent quite a while visiting various websites and reading through the news regarding the current elections, I decided to choose an online newspaper from America (The Washington Post, known as a left-leaning newspaper), one from the UK (The Times Online, moderately right-oriented) and one from Italy (Il Giornale center-right oriented) and focus once again my attention on the news regarding the right-wing candidates McCain and Berlusconi. As in the American and English websites I couldn’t find any recent news about Berlusconi, I decided to compare the news I found about McCain, which basically concern his foreign policy in Middle East and Europe and his uncertainty in choosing his running-mate.
As regards the news about his foreign policy, right from the title - John McCain visits Middle East and Europe - we can notice that in The Times Online the journalist appears to have a more neutral stance towards the facts than the journalist in the article of The Washington Post, in which the title sounds in fact slightly ironic - McCain on World stage on Mideast, Europe trip - using the word "stage", recalled later on in the article using the expressions "overseas audition" and "political theater aimed at voters in the United states". Then, reading both articles, you can see that in The Washington Post the journalist tends to criticize the candidate right from the start, at times using incisive words and expressions, such as: “But as a candidate, McCain has been, if anything, more bellicose than Bush on North Korea and Iran.[...] McCain's unwavering support for the Iraq war is well known across the continent; his aggressive rhetoric toward some of the world's nations. […] In early 2007, the continued violence in Iraq made his support for the policy seem naive. During his last visit in the country nearly a year ago, McCain was mocked for declaring an Iraqi marketplace safe while touring it under heavy military guard. […] Other times, he appeared to relish the use of force, as when he sang "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran […]"(Article by Shear.M, retrieved on Saturday, March 15, 2008).
This critical stance towards Conservatives is to be seen in the comments of the people as well, for example Bunkerhill wrote: "McCain has no answers other than continue down the Bush highway. This will take us to places like endless war, a broken economy, inflation, and more multi-trillion dollar deficits. Mix in torture, rendition, secret prisons, and the reputation of the US will sink even further with the rest of the world."
On the other hand, in the article of The Times Online “John McCain visits Middle East and Europe” more neutral information is presented, even though when you read the related articles, such as "Hillary Clinton's prodigal coalition" , you can see clearly that the journalist tends to praise McCain’s political campaign: "[...] Mr McCain said the Democrats would abrogate trade treaties, raise taxes and hurt American business. This is brave – and, it should be said, accurate – stuff. […] The odds on his succeeding are long, but then again the odds on his winning the Republican nomination were even longer six months ago”. (Article by Gerard Baker, retrieved on Sunday, March 16, 2008).
As regards the images used, we can notice that on the one hand The WaPo frequently uses hilarious and ironic cartoons of Obama vs. McCain (in which the final winner is Obama) and at times even photos in which McCain does not appear in the foreground (see this), even though he is the subject of the article. On the other hand, in The Times Online you can see that there are many photos of McCain smiling and together with his wife.
Overall, I think that such differences are basically due to the different political stance of the two newspapers (as I said above, The Times Online is center-right oriented, while The WaPo has more a left-leaning orientation).
Differences are to be noticed also in the location and the coverage of the news about McCain: in The Times Online it was quite hard to find it because it was located under the section News- world news – US & America's news - Latest news - Related links, and it covered only one page whereas in The Wapo it is located in the main page of the section ‘politics main’ and it covers two pages. Such a difference between the two is essentially due to the fact that in an English newspaper like The Times the US elections are treated as news of secondary importance as they don’t directly concern UK’s current affairs; on the other hand, being an US online newspaper, the Washington Post gives to them more relevance.
However, in The Times Online there is more information about US politics than in Il Giornale, as the UK has a stronger relationship with U.S. policy and culture than Italy has. In fact, on Il Giornale I couldn’t find any recent news concerning McCain since it mainly deals with Italian politics, therefore I decided to concentrate on the news I found today about Berlusconi, i.e. “Berlusconi avverte la sinistra:"Sì al dialogo, ma chi vince governa". Being a center-right oriented newspaper, the news about Berlusconi always have a central position on the main page of politics and a lot of space is left to the images as well: most of the times they are very big (like the one of the article, see above) and show him always in the foreground, smiling. Reading the article, we can notice that a lot of space is left to his current policy and his comments about the center-left platform, which are always aimed at criticism: "[...] ovvero presentarsi come un partito nuovo, mentre invece tra i suoi candidati, in posizione sicura, c’è il 70% dei ministri, viceministri e sottosegretari del governo uscente". Moreover, the journalist shows a cleary right-leaning stance in presenting the news: " [...] Un’abitudine, quella della sinistra a non mantenere le promesse fatte, che Berlusconi aveva dimostrato del resto anche in mattinata nel disastrato quartiere romano di Corviale".
Differences are to be noticed also in the location and the coverage of the news about McCain: in The Times Online it was quite hard to find it because it was located under the section News- world news – US & America's news - Latest news - Related links, and it covered only one page whereas in The Wapo it is located in the main page of the section ‘politics main’ and it covers two pages. Such a difference between the two is essentially due to the fact that in an English newspaper like The Times the US elections are treated as news of secondary importance as they don’t directly concern UK’s current affairs; on the other hand, being an US online newspaper, the Washington Post gives to them more relevance.
However, in The Times Online there is more information about US politics than in Il Giornale, as the UK has a stronger relationship with U.S. policy and culture than Italy has. In fact, on Il Giornale I couldn’t find any recent news concerning McCain since it mainly deals with Italian politics, therefore I decided to concentrate on the news I found today about Berlusconi, i.e. “Berlusconi avverte la sinistra:"Sì al dialogo, ma chi vince governa". Being a center-right oriented newspaper, the news about Berlusconi always have a central position on the main page of politics and a lot of space is left to the images as well: most of the times they are very big (like the one of the article, see above) and show him always in the foreground, smiling. Reading the article, we can notice that a lot of space is left to his current policy and his comments about the center-left platform, which are always aimed at criticism: "[...] ovvero presentarsi come un partito nuovo, mentre invece tra i suoi candidati, in posizione sicura, c’è il 70% dei ministri, viceministri e sottosegretari del governo uscente". Moreover, the journalist shows a cleary right-leaning stance in presenting the news: " [...] Un’abitudine, quella della sinistra a non mantenere le promesse fatte, che Berlusconi aveva dimostrato del resto anche in mattinata nel disastrato quartiere romano di Corviale".
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