Blog 4: Former President Donald Trump's Second Assassination Attempt: CNN vs. FoxNews

                  

 On September 15, 2024, Former President Donald Trump endured his second assassination attempt within the past three months while he was playing golf at his course in Florida. Since then, the suspect, Ryan Routh, has been put on trial and there have been many shocking pieces of evidence pointing to his personal vendetta to Trump. In this blog post, I will be discovering how CNN covered the findings about the suspect as well as FoxNews’ interpretation of the evidence. I would also like to look at how the article “Covering Facts Versus the Narrative” by Brendan Nyhan, can provide more insight to how cues and the tone of a story can generate strong perceptions among the public. 

      

  In the FoxNews article, Trump assassination attempt: Suspect's possible 'personal vendetta' among investigators' 4 key questions there is a clear layout with the top four questions that investigators must research through various forms of Routh’s digital footprint. The questions are: Did Routh act alone? What was his motive? How did Routh come into possession of a firearm? How did Routh know where to lie in wait? The investigators have also found that Routh made a number of political posts slandering Trump with harsh words and even went on to say that Iran should ‘feel free’ to assassinate him. It does not end there, “He also wrote that he would be willing to "volunteer to fight and die" to assist Ukrainian troops on the front lines” (Coulter, 2024). There are still no answers as to how Routh obtained his firearm, because of his past conviction of weapons possession back in 2002. FoxNews then questions how Routh knew where to be for the perfect shot at Trump. FoxNews offers up the idea that someone on the inside could have given Routh entail on Trump’s whereabouts for that day or there was a severe breach in security. 

The CNN article,Ryan Wesley Routh, man detained in apparent assassination attempt on Trump, criticized former president on social media | CNN Politics, immediately begins with informing the public about Routh’s posts against Trump. The journalists continue to describe some of these posts; “‘You and Biden should visit the injured people in the hospital from the Trump rally and attend the funeral of the murdered fireman. Trump will never do anything for them,” he wrote in a post directed at Harris” (Devine et al, 2024). It is reported that Routh also voted Democrat in the last election and that he contributed more than $100 to ActBlue, which is a donation site for the Democratic party. Routh also used to own a business in Honolulu and when a man wrote a bad review about the work he had done, Routh threatened over email and even told the man that he went to Ukraine to fight against Russia. This article focuses on describing Routh’s past and his character, more so than FoxNews’ coverage of the investigative work being done to hold him accountable. 

When looking at these two articles side by side, I can tell that FoxNews almost has more of an urgency concerning prosecuting Trump’s shooter and understanding why he would want to kill him. On the contrary, CNN is talking about how Routh is an avid democrat and includes a quote from his son who is explaining that Routh is a honest, hardworking man. There are two distinctly different tones and themes that each author utilizes to express their stance on this shooting. Furthermore, it appears that both media outlets may be trying to spin their own narrative on a situation that only requires reporting. For example, “It’s much easier to pontificate about the “narrative” or engage in armchair punditry about scandal response tactics (Obama needs new staff!) than to do the hard work of reporting, but that hard work remains the most important function of journalism” (Nyhan, 2013). It is still critical to note that there is an undeniable challenge that each journalist faces when an event occurs (like these assassination attempts) for the author to stay true to the facts, be responsible for their role, and objectively report the news. 

  References

Cjr. (n.d.). Covering facts versus the “narrative.” Columbia Journalism Review. https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/covering_facts_versus_the_narrative.php#sthash.hfb8sz8l.dpuf