Television News Program Analysis

COM/310

July 23, 2012
Margaret Allender

Television News Program Analysis

In the media now days, every media sources has their own way or portraying what is going on the world today. Based on three mass media sources ABC, NPR radio, and The New York Times the main topic being discussed today is the Zimmerman trial case. George Zimmerman was a security guard is accused of killing an innocent 17-year-old boy who was a different race than George in self-defense reasoning. George accused the African American boy of having a weapon who shot the boy, which ended up killing him. Community was in uproar over this situation that lead to this controversial debate: did he shoot the boy out of defense or out of racial hate? These three media sources each have their own interpretation on the Zimmerman case after a recent worldwide interview with George that demonstrates the medias standpoint and the personal values that affect individuals. With the recent scandal of George’s release from jail on bail, his first televised interview to the world, included important points of the segment that led to subjective reasoning. During certain points in the interview, Zimmerman mentions that the whole incident happened for a reason and that reason was “all in God’s plan.” Zimmerman is being accused of second-degree murder who is out of jail today and making statements that will be used in his trial for evidence. During the segments of the interview, Zimmerman even took back his comment on if he ever regretted the situation, which led him to say no he did not. The point of the interview was so that people understood his reasoning and how is not a bad person. Subjective reasoning is based on someone’s point of view or belief (LaFave, 2008). How the media demonstrates subjective reasoning is the way they interpret what Zimmerman is trying to convey to its audience. For example, in the ABC news coverage of the interview, it states that the whole situation was God’s plan but in NPR radio they had a segment to the communities response to his statement, which will go into details later throughout this paper. In any mass media sources, there will always be a subjective reasoning to the situation. The main thing that should have been mentioned in the interviews was the response to the situation from the communities’ standpoint. The situation at hand is not just about Zimmerman; it is also about how the community has been so negative towards this situation. There have been in the past of racial issues but has never been a problem until this situation happened. The media failed to include that although he did do a crime in other peoples eyes but we do not know all the facts that lead to this problem. These media sources do not mention what led to this case but we are just suppose to assume that his man committed a crime from hate and is now apologizing for is actions. We do not know if he really did this out of hate but it is leading us to assume that. This interview that Zimmerman wanted was his opinion on the whole ordeal that happened that led to subjective reasoning in this case. The various social groups within the news segments represent the community. As mentioned before from what Zimmerman quoted before about God, there was a response from the victim’s parents. According to NPR video it states, “We must worship a different God. There is no way that my God wanted George Zimmerman to murder my teenage son” (Memmott, 2012). The family of this boy and the community have come together to make sure that Zimmerman understands how hurtful and how it has affected the community as a whole. The main reason behind this interview was to show people his side of the story and what he believes that lead to the situation. In that segment alone about God, even the religious community was most likely affected by comment since Zimmerman killed someone, which is considered a sin. Various social groups, such as cultures