It's 3am and I'm writing my LAST term paper. Wow! If it wasn't for the caffeine pumping through my body, I can assure you that I would almost be able to feel the premature nostalgia. Anyway, given that this last undergraduate all-nighter is a very special event for me, I hereby grant you blogfans the chance to read the intro paragraph to my (still unfinished) last term paper:
When writing about international affairs, newspaper reporters express themselves through a particular geopolitical discourse. Their news reports use claims about geography to paint a vision of the world that situates their stories and their arguments in a specific ideological realm. Given that most popular newspapers are owned by large corporations, the geopolitical assumptions inherent in the stories they publish can be indicative of their political or economic agendas. Thus, by analyzing newspaper reporting and identifying the particular inclinations of the writers, it is possible to challenge a story’s air of objectivity and unmask the hidden bias towards a specific discourse.
In this context, the present essay will explore newspaper reporting of a military deal signed between the United States and Poland on August 14, 2008, where Poland agreed to allow the installation of American missile silo’s in its territory. The move was controversial and aroused strong criticism from the Russian government, who interpreted the deal as an affront to its national security. The first part of the essay will present a brief history of the issue. Then, the essay will analyze four news stories on the issue that were published on the same week by four different sources: The New York Times, Fox News, The Independent, and The Daily Telegraph. By deliberately choosing two American and two British sources, and a left leaning and right leaning source in each country, the essay pretends to explore geopolitical differences based on the newspapers’ ideological lines. Also, choosing articles from the same week helps to control for differences in information that may accrue when comparing stories published within a larger time frame. The essay will ultimately argue that by favoring a specific world view while marginalizing others through their geographic assumptions, each news source displays a distinct political agenda.
Acabo de regresar del concierto de Chikita Violenta en Seattle. No he tenido mucho tiempo de bloggear porque el viernes me lanzo al DF y tengo muchos "quehaceres" pendientes antes de regresar al motherland. Pero les comparto que me dió un gusto tremendo estar en la primera gira internacional de la Chikita y verlos rockear en la ciudad de Cobain y Vedder. Como dijo Andrés desde el escenario, "We were eating a pizza a block away from here and I suddenly noticed they were playing Alice in Chains. And then I realized it has always been a dream for us to stand on a stage in the city that gave birth to grunge."
Fueron la banda principal de la noche, y la única que logró que todo el público del High Dive se acercara al escenario a rockear. Jero Jiménez, baterista de Simona, fue el músico invitado de la gira y le inyectó dos kilos de extra punch a todas las rolas. Mad skills, that boy, maaaad skills. Trataron de cerrar la noche con "The Last Film", pero la rola alborotó demasiado a la gente y tuvieron que regresar a tocar un encore no planeado: repitieron la rola abridora, "War" porque, como explicó Armando, "we didn't have time to practice every single song with the new drummer!
Felicidades a la Chikita Violenta por su primera gira...and keep on rockin'!
