The Chicago Times and the Chicago Turbine were two leading newspapers in the late 1890’s. Both of the newspapers had coverage of the Pullman Strike available to their readers. The Pullman Strike is an event in Illinois history where workers chose to walk out of their occupations due to the environment. The depression made the worker’s wages get cut by twenty-five percent. This cut was the cause of workers to have an enormous amount of stress, eventually leading to a strike against the corporation. As the public would expect, there was bias present in each of the newspapers. Quite often, newspapers modify their stories, taking one side of an event and wording the story in their favor. Having the stories altered also changes the reader’s outlook
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The diction of an article is the easiest and furthermost common way to show bias. If writers want to speak poorly on one side of an argument, they may use more derogative words such as violent, forced, mob, dictator, trampled, etc. When writers support a side of an argument, they use words such as notified, allowed, informed, offer, etc. In the Chicago Times, the reporters wrote about the Pullman strike with a bias against it. The writers of the Chicago Times believed that the strike gave labor unions a bad reputation. The newspaper says that, “the strike of yesterday was ordered by a committee of forty-six representing every department of the Pullman works.” The article adds, “The terms upon which the men insist before returning to work are the restoration of the wage scale of 1893, time and one-half for overtime, and no discrimination against any of those who have taken a prominent part in the strike.” (Brown/Shannon, Source 2) These quotes show that the Chicago Times was against the strike and biased due to the wording of the article. The reporter uses words such as “ordered, insist, restoration, and discrimination.” These words show a negative feeling towards the strike, and the reporter uses critical words rather than words such as assembled, ask/request, allowed,
The diction of an article is the easiest and furthermost common way to show bias. If writers want to speak poorly on one side of an argument, they may use more derogative words such as violent, forced, mob, dictator, trampled, etc. When writers support a side of an argument, they use words such as notified, allowed, informed, offer, etc. In the Chicago Times, the reporters wrote about the Pullman strike with a bias against it. The writers of the Chicago Times believed that the strike gave labor unions a bad reputation. The newspaper says that, “the strike of yesterday was ordered by a committee of forty-six representing every department of the Pullman works.” The article adds, “The terms upon which the men insist before returning to work are the restoration of the wage scale of 1893, time and one-half for overtime, and no discrimination against any of those who have taken a prominent part in the strike.” (Brown/Shannon, Source 2) These quotes show that the Chicago Times was against the strike and biased due to the wording of the article. The reporter uses words such as “ordered, insist, restoration, and discrimination.” These words show a negative feeling towards the strike, and the reporter uses critical words rather than words such as assembled, ask/request, allowed,