Media Bias

And the first post of 2012, goes to:
An article about people riding around the subway without pants on.

Finding Media Bias

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/08/world/no-pants-rides/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

 

Personalization: Said, ‘The only requirement is to act nonchalant -- read, listen to your iPod, chat with your fellow riders -- as you go about your normal business without any pants.’  Links it to the riders, and the other people they’ll be riding with.

Dramatization: Headline is: Subway riders drop pants as part of global event

 

Fragmentation: Didn’t really talk about history of group, and how they tend to do things like this pretty often

Authority-disorder: Made it seem like this is some imposing, unknown group who’ll be doing this.  Said, ‘NEW: The goal is to elicit laughs; the group has no political agenda.’

1. My article followed this list pretty closely.  The main differences I could see, was that since it was talking about the activities of a group, it wasn't as personalized as articles normally are.  However, it dramatized, with how CNN was stating conformation that the group doesn't have a political agenda, and the way the headline was shaped.  It clearly stated the 'orders' for the groups memebers to follow, however, so the readers could think of how it would be for them in a situation encountering someone dressed in such a manner.  The authority stated in this case, wasn't really a case of authority-disorder, as nobody but Improv Everywhere forced Improv Everywhere to walk around without pants on.
2. The bias was what led to me reading the article in the first place, since when I saw the headline, I thought it was a yearly event by an prank group, Improv Everywhere, I'd previously read about, which it was.  It was intersting reading it, as it made it sound as if there would be subway cars where one person who wasn't in on the joke would be surrounded by 20 pantless people, which isn't what it looks like watching videos of it.
3. I think that without something to make it stand out, like an eye catching headline, an article about an annual prank on subway systems wouldn't really be news on CNN's homepage.  It simply isn't the thing most people go to CNN looking for, since it doesn't have the largest effect on them.  Unless you just got really faked out on the subway, then it may be a nice, but late FYI.