The conflict and gunfire in Syria has been covered
heavily in the news for weeks by countries all over the world and has repeatedly
appeared on U.S. headlines as new turmoil occurs. The latest news was centered
around the four-day Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha. Recognizing the importance of
religion in the country and among the people, the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA)
and the President Bashar al-Assad and his government agreed to a ceasefire
in Syria. Both cnn.com (United States) and Al Jazeera.com (published from the
country Qatar, which lies near the Persian Gulf) covered the truce as well as
its failure. Gunfire, protests, and car bombs erupted as early as this morning
(October 26), just as Eid al-Adha started.
Coverage by CNN is informational, but gets its facts
secondhand.
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| Ceasefire is violated in Syria after fighting erupted Friday morning. | (RT.com) |
CNN’s news article
entitled “Is this a truce? Within hours, bullets again flying in Syria” gives
the latest information on what is going on in Syria although it lacks quotes
from witnesses or government officials in the area and direct information. Though
some quotes are present, they are often paraphrased and could have been
inserted from another previous article. Because of the lack of this inside
information, CNN set up its article less as a breaking news story and more in
my opinion as an in depth article of the events that occurred with more details
that create shock value and human interest. Throughout the story, CNN uses
citations such as “Syrian media reported….”, “rebel fighters told Al Jazeera
news agency that…”, and “CNN can’t confirm reports of violence…” This could be
due to the lack of time available to the writers to gather information before
releasing the story and the restricted access to the Syrian government for an
American journalist. So the article created several bullet points to highlight
the irony of what has happened after the truce including “At least 30 people
were reportedly killed across Syria Friday.” With the shocking details on the
death toll and conflicts that arose today as well as the beginning of the story
including information on a car bomb in Damascus that killed several people,
most of whom were children, exemplifies CNN’s attempt to capture the audience
using human interest and tragedy. This will most likely be effective as the
audience continues to check back in for more information and to find out more
about the people of Syria.
Al Jazeera gives the
information on Syria’s events quickly and efficiently.
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| Protesters chant against the government. (guardian.co.uk) |
The Al Jazeera
article, “Syria clashes ‘violate’ Eid ceasefire”, describes the fighting that
broke out between the Syrian government and the rebels this morning and gives
coverage to the protesters chanting against President Bashar al-Assad and the
government. The article explains how the group Al-Nusra Front, whose members
had already stated that they would not follow the truce, was included in the
rebel fighters that began conflict around a military base this morning. In
response, the government’s army bombed the neighboring village Deir Sharqi. In
addition to providing a couple direct quotes, Al Jazeera also makes sure to
mention the effects of ceasefire all over Syria: “’The ceasefire has collapsed
in several regions of Syria but there is still less violence and fewer victims
than usual,’ Rami Abdel Rahman… told the AFP news agency on Friday.”
While CNN mostly centered its article on the destruction and fighting that occurred
despite the ceasefire, Al Jazeera mentions that despite the several violations
of ceasefire, some regions of Syria are actually experiencing more peace than
usual due to the holiday. The story also includes information on the protesters
and their anti-regime chants in Deraa and the capitol Damascus.
The same Syrian
events inspire two different forms of coverage.
It seems that Al Jazeera was able to acquire
more information about what is going in Syria than CNN, possibly due to its
closer proximity. As a result, the article is shorter and to the point. The
information is very factual and informative. Like CNN, it seems as though the
article was written with the mindset of acquiring more information as more
becomes available because of a few loose ends and alleged comments. While the
articles are about the same topic and do include a lot of the same or similar
information, CNN seems to focus more on the ceasefire and the horrid events
that violated it while Al Jazeera wrote a more straight-forward and informative
story. Neither CNN’s article nor Al Jazeera’s story seemed to contain bias or
focus on the writer’s opinion and both articles seem to have received their
information through reliable sources (despite the fact that CNN often used a
secondhand source). This leads me to trust both articles although each has a
different objective in relaying the story. In the future I will probably use Al
Jazeera’s articles to find more direct and inside information on the very
latest news from Syria and use CNN for details and analysis.
