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About the Author

Hello everyone! My name is Kaylee. Welcome to A Balanced Take, the blog I am keeping for my POLS 3380 Mass Media & Politics course during the Fall 2021 semester. The goal of this blog is to point out partisan bias that occurs in the media when reporting on major news events, then use the judgements uncovered in their reporting to craft an unbiased, fact-driven analysis of the news story. I hope to draw attention to the impact that the media sources we consume have on our political views with the intention of encouraging all of us to be more mindful of where we get our news.

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On the Facebook Whistleblower Testifying to Congress

  Last week, former Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen testified to a Congressional subcommittee that the company knows how to make its platform safer and prevent the spread of misinformation, but has decided not to in order to boost its profit margins. Here are the takes of various media outlets on the situation: Tends to skew right: Fox News: Whistleblower says Facebook is a US 'national security issue' This article focuses on the reported threat to America’s security that Facebook poses, which caters to the priorities to right-wing readers by centering the United States’ and its citizens' interests. The statements made by the Facebook whistleblower to Congress are featured predominantly through the article, with her claims of Iran’s espionage and Facebook’s “understaffing of the counter-espionage information operations and counterterrorism teams” mentioned early on. It notes the “rare bipartisan fashion” of the hearings and the desire of both parties to r...
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On the Kabul Airstrike Investigation's Findings

  In August, I wrote my second post on the media coverage of the airstrike conducted by the US targeting a suspect ISIS-K member responsible for planning the Kabul airport attack. At the time, the US government believed that it had successfully killed the target and was unaware of any civilian casualties. However, the Wall Street Journal article that I analyzed included original reporting that contradicted the government's comments. Now, the government has released the findings of its investigation into the strike, confirming that it did not in fact kill any ISIS-K members and that ten Afghan civilians were innocent victims of the attack. This week, I have analyzed the same three sources that I used in that second post to see how their reporting on the government's findings compares to their initial reporting on the airstrike. Tends to skew right: Fox News: “General says it is unlikely ISIS-K members killed in August Kabul drone strike: 'A tragic mistake'” The biggest ...
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On the US Lifting Restrictions on International Travelers

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