Politics Today

On Sunday,  conservative Mauricio Macri was announced to be the new president of Argrntina. This came after he promised business friendly reforms that would help the struggling economy. He won in a close election by 53%. His policies are similar to the ones prior to the economy crisis that threw millions of people into poverty in 2002.

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Politics Today

A Turkish airlines plane was flying from New York to Istanbul was diverted to Canada because of a bomb threat. Police have declined to comment on this and say that they are looking for the people involved. The plane landed safely and there were no threats found aboard, but bomb dogs are scheduled to sweep it.

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Politics Today

On Sunday night, 16 people were wounded at a park in New Orleans. There was a music video shoot going on when two groups started open firing. Ten people were taken to the hospital and six others were escorted to vehicles. The cause of the shooting is still unknown.

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Politics Today

On Tuesday, Bobby Jindal ended his presidential campaign. Jindal has remained in the back of the pack since he announced his campaign in June. Since he has not seen any increase in support, and has consistently been televised on the secondary GOP debates he has decided it is not his time to become president.

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Iran Political Parties

1.) They are a theocratic Islamic republic governed under the constitution of 1979. Theocracy is a form of government in which a deity is recognized. Officials are appointed not elected. Offices and bodies hold the real power in the government.  The President is Ali Khamenei. There is a parliment of Iran that is comprised of 290 members elected for a four year term. There is also a Guardian Council which is composed of 12 jurists. These jurists include 6 clerics appointed by the Supreme Leader and 6 elected by the parliament majiles from the Muslim jurists nominated by the head of the judicial system. Finally there is the expediency council which mediates disputes between the parrliment and guardian council.

2.) There are 76 parties in Iran.

3.) Two are considered major, the conservatives and the reformists.

4.) Out of the 76 parties in Iran, 64 of them are exiled.

5.) There are 6 ideological branches in which the parties are divided into, communists, Socialists and social democrats, Ethnic nationalists, Muslim- Democrats, Liberal Democrats and Secular Nationalists, and Anti islamic Nationalists.

6.) I learned about how the government was structured. I realized that they were always ruled by an elected official, but I did not know that they had legislative branches or any sort of elected officials.


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Politics Today

Friday the 13th at least 129 people were killed and 352 injured in the terror attacks in Paris. All of the terrorists inside the concert hall were eventually killed by police, and France is tightening its boarder control to look for further accomplices. The President has issued a state of emergency. There were multiple places attack but the worst place seems to be the Bataclan theater where hostages were held.

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Politics Today

Salt Lake City Utah is about to elect its first openly gay mayor. 3/4th of the canidates have stated that they do not believe that her sexual orientation with have an effect on the race for the office. A poll showed that 12% stated that her sexual orientation made them more likely to vote for her and only 10% said the opposite.

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In 2010 a 9/11 health and compensation bill was passed. This bill was eventually compromised because some republicans were skeptical of it. It was recently discovered that in the compromise somewhere between 11.5 and 14.5 billion dollars were cut.

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Politics Today

The Senate approved the National Defense Authorization Act on Tuesday. The bill prevents money from going to transferring prisoners from Guantanamo Bay and building facilities to put the prisoners in once they get here. This hinders Obama's promise that he would close Guantanamo Bay.

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This past weekend over 30 football players from the University of Missouri, stated that they would not play another game until the universities president is removed. For months there has been complaints of racial slurs at the primarily white university. The issue became real when a group of students surrounded the presidents car and he refused to get out ad talk to them. He has stated that changes need to be made and there is a meeting scheduled in April to promote diversity and tolerance.


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The Man Behind the Mosque

1.      Assume that the documentary, The Man Behind the Mosque, provided an accurate and research-based perspective on how the “Ground Zero Mosque” became a story. Based on what you saw there, what steps can you remember the cable-news media covering the story taking to investigate who was actually behind the Mosque in terms of mission, goals, and funding?

They interviewed the planner, people who support the project, they went to a rally where they interviewed people against the plan, they interviewed people who lost loved ones in 9/11, and saw a fundraising opportunity where they asked for money because they had none.

2.      Who brought the story of the “Ground Zero Mosque” to Fox News, the station that broke the story and led coverage of the story?

Pamela Zeller

3.      It can be argued that much of the cable news coverage of the story was just that – coverage of a “story,” and how people felt about this “story,” rather than actual reporting.  Explain how we can see this at work

This can be seen because they include many stories about people who are ready to build the mosque today and others who are completely opposed to the idea. There are few facts about the process the builders are going through in order to build this place and the logistics of the project and more about feelings.

4.      The journalists of Frontline included coverage of and interviews with the staff of Park 51 (the NYU grad and a couple other part-timers).  Do these individuals appear ever to have been interviewed on cable-news?

I would think so, they were very well spoken and did not appear to have any nerves.

5.      What sources did Cable news appear to rely on for knowledge and expertise about Islam?  How credible did you find these sources?  Why?

The main resources this documentary used were the coordinator of the project, his employees and the people who backed him, and there were stories at the beginning from families that lost their loved ones in 9/11.

6.      How relevant is the ownership of a media source for understanding its goals and how its goals may shape bias in its coverage? 

A Saudi Prince is owns FOX news. This Prince is Muslim, therefore it would be bias towards Muslims because he wants to shed positive light of his religion.

7.      Who was, at the time of the Ground Zero Mosque story, the second largest shareholder in the News Corp?

Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal

8.      If you bring up the topic of the Ground Zero mosque today, many people might say something like, “Oh yeah . . . What ever happened to that?”  Think about it:  Given the level of urgency that was attached to the story, why did cable news just stop covering the story of the Mosque at Ground Zero?

Cable news probably dropped the story because of a combination of two ideas. Bigger and better news came along and that captured the people’s attention. Also it hit a dead end and the project was no longer going anywhere. They no longer had a story to cover.