Mueller Report Part 2
Since I enjoyed analyzing the bias different news sources contain last time, I decided to it again, with another article on the Mueller Report (here). This is a CNN article about Robert Mueller's possible testimony against Trump, and why he may or may not testify to begin with, despite having lead an investigation on Trump for the past few years. The article refers to the hearing as "what could become the most consequential hearing of the Trump administration" which is an example of weasel words as it specifically says "could" which is an extremely weak word for implying something will happen, and allows the writer to avoid being accused of inaccurate information. I COULD run away from home to join a traveling circus troupe, but that certainly doesn't make it at all likely. Any hearing could be the most important as a key breakthrough or confession could occur at any one of them, so the word is just nonsense trying to get reader's hopes up that this will be the hearing that finally pins a crime on Trump.
A little further down the article claims the president "reverses course" when he suggest Mueller should not testify, to try and make the administration seem in disarray, as the phrase has a negative connotation. It later floats a possible date for a hearing -May 15th, then covertly tries to make the hearing seem more likely by saying it "might not be the only time the special counsel heads up to Capitol Hill to talk about his report." Here the article not only uses another possibility word but also tries to make the hearing seem more plausible by basing the statement off the assumption that there will be one. Then, when posing the question of if Mueller can testify, the article has one word to say, "yes" which conveys the point well while preventing anyone from misinterpreting it. It then goes into details to back the simple claim up, similarly to how a thesis is executed. This section also says "it is possible that Mueller won't be the only one appearing fro his team," which puts the weak possibility sentences in this article up to three. At this point I'm going to stop mentioning these and just say there are ten examples, not including things like "is like to" or "should."
When addressing Trump's supposed flip on whether Mueller should testify, the article may have weakened the claim of an official by saying Trump didn't "necessarily" intend to block Mueller from testifying instead of using a quote, but given the administrations habit of mincing words, it is very likely that this is an accurate representation of what was said. But CNN's predictions are where things get interesting, as CNN is not expected to just report facts there. They claim Mueller will cling to his report when possible due to his reputation of always following the rules, which seems likely, but believe he may struggle answering questions related to how his report has been characterized and interpreted. How exactly he will answer is unclear according to the article's author, but they provide a few possibilities, like plain answers to poorly phrased questions, or, as CNN tries to play up by putting it first and in its own sentence -he might really make news with his responses. While the article has some bias present, the largest issue in it by far is the inability to stand by its claims, and either predict confidently or just predict the facts. You know, like a the news is supposed to do.
A little further down the article claims the president "reverses course" when he suggest Mueller should not testify, to try and make the administration seem in disarray, as the phrase has a negative connotation. It later floats a possible date for a hearing -May 15th, then covertly tries to make the hearing seem more likely by saying it "might not be the only time the special counsel heads up to Capitol Hill to talk about his report." Here the article not only uses another possibility word but also tries to make the hearing seem more plausible by basing the statement off the assumption that there will be one. Then, when posing the question of if Mueller can testify, the article has one word to say, "yes" which conveys the point well while preventing anyone from misinterpreting it. It then goes into details to back the simple claim up, similarly to how a thesis is executed. This section also says "it is possible that Mueller won't be the only one appearing fro his team," which puts the weak possibility sentences in this article up to three. At this point I'm going to stop mentioning these and just say there are ten examples, not including things like "is like to" or "should."
When addressing Trump's supposed flip on whether Mueller should testify, the article may have weakened the claim of an official by saying Trump didn't "necessarily" intend to block Mueller from testifying instead of using a quote, but given the administrations habit of mincing words, it is very likely that this is an accurate representation of what was said. But CNN's predictions are where things get interesting, as CNN is not expected to just report facts there. They claim Mueller will cling to his report when possible due to his reputation of always following the rules, which seems likely, but believe he may struggle answering questions related to how his report has been characterized and interpreted. How exactly he will answer is unclear according to the article's author, but they provide a few possibilities, like plain answers to poorly phrased questions, or, as CNN tries to play up by putting it first and in its own sentence -he might really make news with his responses. While the article has some bias present, the largest issue in it by far is the inability to stand by its claims, and either predict confidently or just predict the facts. You know, like a the news is supposed to do.
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