Digital Media Analysis
Richard Walls & Christina McKay
The company behind the Keystone Xl pipeline, Trans Canada corp., has written a post on their website on how the keystone pipeline will create jobs and opportunities for a lot of people through-out USA. In their article Trans Canada claim to be able to create 7000 new jobs in the manufacturing process, and another 118000 spin-off jobs. The article never mentions any negative views on the pipeline. This is because Trans Canada is the company behind the pipeline and of course, they want it to look good.
As our second source, we found an article on the Greenpeace website, arguing against the pipeline. Greenpeace mentions that the use of oil in USA has declined the last years, rendering an oil pipeline obsolete. Greenpeace is opposed to the pipeline because of their bias to solve the environmental crisis.
Lastly, we chose a neutral source, the Guardian from the UK. They are a respectable source of news and report the news unbiased. Seeing as they are situated in the UK, it is even more certain that they will not present any opinions since the pipeline does not affect UK directly. The Guardian’s report on the pipeline presented both positive and negative effects of the pipeline. They mentioned that the pipeline will create jobs and also that Canada is a neighbour of USA and they are closely related, which would make the oil “ethical” as they put it in the article. The Guardian also mentioned the negative effects, such as the decline of oil use in the USA, but also the risks of the pipeline. An older pipeline, called just “keystone” has had 14 leaks in just a year.
It becomes quite clear that the same news story can be told from different perspectives. If you were to only read the article from Trans Canada you would think that the pipeline is one of the best-proposed projects in a long time. While if you were to only read the Greenpeace article the pipeline is just a waste of money and a strain on the environment. The different sources are not lying; they are just choosing not to tell the entire truth and choose arguments that will gain their opinion. The Guardian is very clearly neutral, they present the positive effects and the negative effects and lets the reader decide on their opinion.
Reference list:
Greenpeace, 2011. U.S Gasoline Use Declining. [online] (13 October 2011) avaliable at: <http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/usgasoline-use-declining-keystone-xl-pipeline/blog/37320/ >[Acessed 9 December 2011].
The Guardian UK, 2011. Q&A: Keystone XL oil pipeline. [online] (4 November 2011) Avaliable at: <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/04/qa-keystone-xl-oil-pipeline > [Acessed 9 December 2011].
TransCanada, 2011. [online] (18 November 2011) Avaliable at: <http://www.transcanada.com/keystone.html> [Acessed 9 December 2011]
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