CBS vs Fox

The two articles that I chose came from CBS News and Fox news. Both deal with the recent exposure of the latest al Qaeda video which was found by a private intelligence source named SITE. It is generally agreed upon that CBS is a more liberal source and Fox is more conservative. This is why I was not surprised at the results which I found.
From the beginning of the CBS article, I sensed a negative approach to Bush’s efforts. The article began by labeling the release of the video as a “Bush administration leak which ruined years of clandestine work.” Most of the article was spent creating the idea that the leak was more significant than it really was. It contained a quote saying that, “techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless.” The article also attempted to appear to address both sides of the issue by containing quotes from officials saying that the leak was not important, but then quickly followed them up by saying, “But off the record, some intelligence officials admitted that SITE had been of great help in obtaining secrets.” CBS goes on to say that a terrorism expert said that SITE had been of great help in obtaining secrets, but in actuality, when the quote was actually shown, the expert only said that he hopes the government uses the sources to supplement their own intelligence.
It was plain to see that the Fox article did not want blame for the exposed video to go to President Bush or his White House administration, because it considered other possible ways that the video could have been leaked, developing each one. For instance, it quoted White House spokeswoman Dana Perino’s reassuring words, saying, “We are concerned about it, and what we wanted for the American people to know, (is) that if they have information, they should feel comfortable to give it to us and to make sure that their sources are protected. ... I think this is a very isolated incident, and I'm sure the intelligence community takes it very seriously as well.” The article then further downplayed the incident by concluding with a quote from former FBI counter terror chief, Steven Pomerantz, “in terms of the overall gathering of intelligence, 99.9 percent of that is gathered by the government. It would be a mistake to be alarmed by something like this, to imply that the government's ability to collect intelligence has somehow been severely impacted by an event like this. That may be an exaggeration."
Clearly, CBS chose to focus on increasing the negative spin that the video’s exposure had already created, while Fox did it’s best to calm its readers, downplaying the incident’s importance. This is an excellent example of how the source of an opinion or story can influence it’s reader.