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Choose ONE member of the United States Congress to investigate. It can be your representative to the U.S. House or one of your state’s two senators. If this is an election year and your representative has just lost their seat, do not do that person. Put all information in your own words. Do NOT cut and paste!
Do this one on Hank Johnson (Georgia Democrat house of representatives)
Websites
Vote Smart
This site contains biographical information, issue positions, voting records and interest group evaluations for each member of Congress.
Center for Responsive Politics
This site has detailed information on campaign contributions received by candidates in each district and where their money came from.
Official Site of the House of Representatives
Among other things, this site contains links to individual member homepages.
Official Site of the Senate
Among other things, this site contains links to individual member homepages.
Use the above websites to answer the following questions about your member of Congress:
1. Go to the
Vote Smart
website and answer the following questions:
· Click on “Bio” on the top menu bar of the website. What is the background of your member of Congress (occupation, political party, years served in Congress, legislative committees they serve on)?
· Click on “Positions” on the top menu bar of the Vote Smart website. Select three issues and describe your member’s position. Use the responses to the Political Courage Test. If they did not take the test, Vote Smart estimates their positions. Share your findings.
· Click on “Votes”. Describe two votes taken by your member. How do you feel about his or her votes?
· Click on “Ratings” on the Vote-Smart website. The page is organized by issue with several interest groups listed for each issue. Review several issue categories. Which interest groups did each candidate vote with the most frequently? Give examples of specific groups.
2. Go to the
Center for Responsive Politics
. Click on Congressional Races under Politicians and Elections. Then choose your state and your member. How much did each candidate (Democrat and Republican) raise in your member’s last race? Who were the major contributors and supporting industries for your member? For both candidates, did most money raised come from individuals, PACS or some other source?
3. Visit your member’s homepage in Congress by visiting the person’s official House or Senate page. What kinds of material are located on each website? What do you think the candidates hope to achieve with their websites? Evaluate each candidate’s site on the basis of content, appearance and user-friendliness.
Begin by reading
this article from John McManus
on how to be a critical consumer of media. Then read the assigned CQ Researcher article on Media Bias for this week found in the Readings & Assignments page.
After completing these readings visit the next two sites:
· The
Media Research Center
is a conservative organization that maintains that media coverage is biased toward the left.
· The group,
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
, is a liberal watchdog group that holds the opposite opinion. Read what these sites have to offer (briefings, reports, etc.)
Answer the following questions about what you have read:
1. Summarize two briefings or reports from the Media Research Center related to media bias. Explain how the MRC finds the coverage discussed to be biased.
2. Summarize two briefings or reports from FAIR related to media bias. How does FAIR find the coverage discussed to be biased.
3. Do you find that one side (Media Research or FAIR) had a more convincing argument that the media is strongly biased toward one side or the other? Explain.
Now that you’re read about how to be a critical consumer of media and about media bias, do some reading of the mainstream media. Examine at least four articles on American politics in recent issues of at least two of major U.S. newspapers (2 articles from each paper): The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal or The Washington Times. Provide a citation for the articles you read in APA format. For examples of how to cite works for your bibliography check out the APA resources provided by the
CC Library
or
OWL Purdue
.
4. Briefly summarize the articles that you chose. How well did they pass the SMELL test described by James McManus? Give specific examples.
5. Did any of the articles that you read seem to favor one viewpoint or political party over another? Why or why not? Illustrate with specific examples of bias or lack of it.
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