Melissa Wallace

Of all four papers listed: USA Today, The Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, and the Dundulk Eagle; I think that USA today has the best chance of survival in to the constantly evolving era of technology. Of each paper USA Today has the widest fan base and is already third in the top 100 papers in the USA. They also cover many subjects in their writing. From politics to what is playing in the movie theatre, the paper covers everything. You can learn interesting events going on throughout the country, and even throughout the world that may impacts or be of interest to our country. You can learn about these even without feeling as though the whole paper is very bias. Consumer reviews point out that there is roughly an even split of people who believe the paper is more conservative and people who believe is it more liberal. So no matter your view they have articles that will agree with your opinions and some that may open your mind to other opinions.

 

Opinion on bias	Conservative	Liberal	See no bias
Percent%	46%	40%	14%

 

But in the end the fan base is what I believe with have the largest influence on the paper’s lifeline. The other papers are simply missing the followers that USA has acquired. Being from Maryland I have heard most about the Baltimore Sun. However, the comments I have heard are mostly about the paper’s bias and that people don’t want to bother reading it anymore. This may be why it has a lack of followers. Word of mouth can cause the demise of a company. So, when I hear these opinions if I were to go buy any of these papers I would probably purchase USA today, the reason being that their customers seem the most satisfied with the content. There have also been comments made that the sections have gotten very small, for instance people don’t use the classifieds adds anymore because craigslist has had such a boom. So, these days when you are buying a paper you are consuming it for the news. That being said, most people who have an interest in reading the news are looking for a very slanted opinion, they want the facts so they can draw their own conclusion. But the like I said the largest reason for my opinion is just that USA today has so many more followers.

 

 

There are many different things you see when you look at the cover of magazines. Just as Cosmo has beautiful women put together by a make-up artist and airbrush to make girls want to be skinnier, or Men’s Health has physically fit men to convince you that by following their workouts you too can look like them, Time has disturbing images portrayed to draw interest into their articles. Every image and picture is put there to give you a desired thought or feeling.

    “What happens if we leave Afghanistan” is the headline on this cover of Time magazine, featured in 2010 to gain support for the war effort. They show a picture of a “poor defenseless woman” who has been mistreated and abused. It gives the American people the sense that these poor women need help and liberation. Each picture impacts our society’s opinion on topics around the world, even to scare people showing a very normal looking kid, from any American community, which grew into “monster” without any warning.

                                                                            

  When you turn to a story on the inside of this Political Magazine there are more gruesome and horrifying pictures to accompany these somewhat bias opinions. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and in today’s society that is certainly true. If you were in line at the grocery store you may only look at the cover of Time and after looking at it you will walk away with the idea that if we don’t stay in Afghanistan that every woman there will lose their nose without having a solid basis for to form that opinion. If you were in that same line the and saw a cover displaying a young boy looking as innocent as any other neighborhood kid labeled a murder you are going to walk away thinking you should start homeschooling your kids. We need to understand that everything we see is put there for a reason. Political magazines are just as phony as a fashion magazine and have just as many hidden agendas, they have to sell copies and they have opinions to support.