This paper will be concerned with the concept known as "framing the news." Journalists use various techniques to frame their news stories. They tend to emphasize certain facts, thereby making those facts seem more important than others. Journalists also tend to omit certain elements of the overall story. By framing their stories in these ways, journalists create specific definitions of the issues being covered. These definitions have an impact on how audiences interpret the news. Some people see framing as problematic when it is biased and is used to influence the opinions of the audience. Most news stories are based on a particular view of the world, which is generally either conservative or liberal in nature. This idea will be illustrated by referring to the coverage of the 2011 budget deal in Congress in the Wall Street Journal (a conservative news source) and the New York Times (a more liberal news source). However, it will also be argued that readers are not necessarily forced to adopt the perspective that occurs as a result of how a news story is framed. Consumers of the news are influenced not only by the framing techniques of particular news sources but also by their own opinions and by the views expressed in alternate news sources.
In Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good, Joseph N. Cappella and Kathleen Hall Jamieson note that writing a news story involves a selection process. Journalists must decide what items to include or emphasize in their stories as well as what items they should leave out (Cappella and Jamieson 45). These choices result in the story having a particular focus, or frame of reference. The way a news story is framed has implications for how the problem should be defined and resolved. Thus, framing encourages readers and viewers to adopt a specific opinion about the news event. As an example of how this process works, Cappella and Jamieson describe a study in which people read news sto...