Elizabeth Warren Drops Out: Media Analysis
Introduction
On February 9, 2019 in a political rally in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren announced her intentions to run for the Democratic nomination for the 2020 Presidential Race. Warren, formerly a layer, has served as senator of Massachusetts since 2013.
Warren’s platform included reforms on capital punishment, private prisons, affordable housing, income equality, student debt, teacher pay, the electoral college, assault weapons and more. As early as December 2019, Warren was acknowledged as a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, usually behind Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.
On March 5, 2020, Warren announced that she was dropping out of the race after being unable to place above third place in any caucus or primary she participated in up until that point. In an email to her supporters, she explained her decision to drop out and thanked her voters for their support, ensuring them that their support made a difference even as she dropped out of the race.
This paper will examine news criteria elements of articles written by several credible sources that covered Elizabeth Warren dropping out of the race. The paper will first examine the articles’ coverage, then what they covered and, finally, how they covered it.
Who
In the articles written about Elizabeth Warren exiting her bid for the 2020 Democratic nominee, the sources are rather similar. None of the articles identify any of the sources’ race, gender, age, religion or socio-economic status. However, the sources are all officials or politicians, so we can at least assume that they are all over the age of 30. Also, many of the sources are political candidates, so we can identify their gender, relative age and race by simply being familiar with them.
A similarity among all the sources in all of the referenced articles is that none of the sources spoke directly to the writers. The quotations in the articles all came from Tweets, emails or other public statements. Since the articles are strictly news with very little subjectivity, none of the articles use opinion quotes from citizens. Rather, the articles choose to stick to officials and politicians with connections to Warren’s campaign.
Not surprisingly, all of the articles use Warren herself as their primary source, mostly quoting her statements after her announcement that she would be dropping out of the race. The Wall Street Journal was among the only articles to use a quote from Warren during her race. Author Joshua Jamerson used a Warren quote that exemplified her dedication to fighting corruption (2020).
Fox News’ coverage of Warren’s dropout contained the most sources, including Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. Fox News quoted the two Democratic nominees’ Twitter responses to Warren dropping out (Olson et al., 2020). Most of the other articles also refer to, without quotations, Sanders’ denial that he ever told Warren a woman could not win the 2020 election.
In terms of diversity, some articles include several non-white people. Fox News’ article included a Tweet from Hispanic former candidate Julian Castro who supported Warren after dropping out (Olson et al., 2020). Fox News, as well as Politico (Thompson, 2020) and Business Insider quoted Roger Lau, Warren’s campaign manager who is also of Asian heritage. Business Insider said, “In a statement, Warren’s campaign manager, Roger Lau, acknowledged that the campaign ‘fell well short of our viability goals and projections and was ‘disappointed’ in the results from Super Tuesday” (Relman and Sheth, 2020). The New York Times also quoted Aimee Allison, a black woman who serves as the founder and president of She The People, a political advocacy organization for women of color. The New York Times quotes Allison praising Warren for her “intersectional politics” (Goldmacher and Herndon, 2020).
A few of the articles used pictures that included people of color. The CNN article features a picture of Warren and Castro posing with a woman and a biracial child (Diaz et al., 2020), and The Wall Street Journal features a photo of Warren with Representative Ayanna Pressley, a black woman who endorsed Warren (Jamerson, 2020).
Since this was the major news story of the day, these articles remained mostly unbiased, not presenting an opinion; rather, the articles just presented the facts of Warren’s campaign and dropout. A few of the articles seemed to favor Warren given their complimentary tone as they listed her accomplishments. NPR’s article, for example, used phrases like “Warren didn’t shy from making her gender a part of her campaign” (Kurtzleben, 2020). Fox News, a famously conservative news site, used phrases like “downward spiral,” implying a disdain for Warren (Olson et al., 2020).
What
Since all the referenced articles are about the biggest news of the day (Warren dropping out of the 2020 race for the Democratic Presidential nominee), they all state very similar information, though some articles vary slightly in what information is and is not presented.
The greatest difference in what is covered is the tone established by the pictures that accompany each article. For example, Fox News (Olson et al., 2020), The New York Times (Goldmacher and Herndon, 2020), CNN (Diaz et al., 2020) and Business Insider (Relman and Sheth, 2020) all feature pictures of Warren looking victorious on the campaign trail, indicating that much of these articles is reminiscent of Warren’s victories on the campaign trail and include some of her accomplishments.
NPR’s article contains only a picture at the top of Warren smiling sadly with the caption “Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks outside her home in Cambridge, Mass., after she dropped out of the Democratic presidential race on Thursday” (Kurtzleben, 2020). This picture’s place at the top of the article established a bittersweet tone for the remainder of the article.
The Wall Street Journal (Jamerson 2020) featured few pictures and a video of the news coverage of Warren’s drop out at the top of the article. Similarly, Politico’s article (Thompson, 2020) featured only a video with no pictures. Having videos with little to no pictures to establish implied a serious, even more “newsy” tone than some of the other articles.
Some of the more minor details of Warren’s campaign were included in some articles but not others. For example, The New York Times (Goldmacher and Herndon, 2020), Politico (Thompson, 2020), and the Wall Street Journal (Jamerson 2020) all included the fact that Warren claimed Sanders had told her in 2018 that a woman could not beat President Trump, a fact which Sanders denied in a debate, causing controversy between the two candidates.
Another topic sometimes referenced in articles is Warren’s pinky promises she made along the campaign trail. Fox News (Olson et al., 2020, The New York Times (Goldmacher and Herndon, 2020), CNN (Diaz et al., 2020) and the Wall Street Journal (Jamerson 2020) all covered the topic, mentioning that Warren made pinky promises to young girls she met on the campaign trail promising to fight for them. Many of these articles used Warren’s quote “You know, I take those pinky promises seriously. So, those were the things I needed to think through.”
None of the stories use physical descriptions of Warren or any of the other sources. Since this is strictly news, there are not many creative liberties taken in any of these articles. Occupations are given for each person mentioned, simply because they are notable people whose occupations are helpful to understand for the sake of the article.
Again, these articles are not biased because they are presenting news. They are all factual, though it seems that some articles imply either a disdain or support for Warren based on some of the phrasing used.
How
In all but one of the referenced articles, Warren is referred to as “progressive,” usually aligning her with Bernie Sanders, while calling Joe Biden the more “moderate” candidate. Only The Wall Street Journal (Jamerson, 2020) does not use the word “progressive to describe Warren. Instead, The Wall Street Journal article chose to describe her as a “liberal” candidate, forgoing the word “progressive.”
Fox News (Olson et al., 2020) chose to use pictures of Tweets from Paul Steinhauser, a political reporter, Warren herself, Biden, Sanders, Trump, Julian Castro and Amy Klobuchar. Fox News quoted these tweets and then showed pictures of them, providing the information as well as a visual aid.
After their initial introduction in which full names are used, sources are referred to only as their last names in all but two of the referenced articles. The New York Times (Goldmacher and Herndon, 2020), and Wall Street Journal (Jamerson, 2020), however, refer to subjects with either Ms. or Mr. before their last name after the initial reference (Mr. Trump, Mr. Sanders, Ms. Warren). Surely this is due to company standards and rules that establish certain guidelines for what kind of words and formalities to use when referring to sources.
Articles from CNN (Diaz et al., 2020) and the New York Times (Goldmacher and Herndon, 2020) refrain from the word “female” while all the other articles utilize the word in describing Warren as the last remaining female candidate before dropping out of the race.
The New York Times (Goldmacher and Herndon, 2020) as well as Fox News (Olson et al., 2020) also referred to Warren’s support base as coming from the “working class” while other sources did not use this phrase to describe her supporters.
Some articles use photographs that help contribute to Warren’s appearance as someone looking for a diverse base and support from diverse people. CNN (Diaz et al., 2020) used a picture of her with Julian Castro, and The Wall Street Journal (Jamerson, 2020) used a picture of Warren with Rep. Ayanna Pressley. Both of these people are non-white.
Fox News (Olson et al., 2020), The Wall Street Journal (Jamerson, 2020), Politico (Thompson, 2020), CNN (Diaz et al., 2020) and The New York Times (Goldmacher and Herndon, 2020) all inserted their own videos from their company that covered Warren exiting the race. By adding these videos, audiences have the option of viewing the news in another way than just by reading the information. This also adds another element of validity to the article and diversifies the way the audience is processing the information.
Conclusion
When Elizabeth Warren made the decision to drop out of the race for the 2020 Democratic Presidential candidate, it was big news. Warren had a great following and had made it far in the race, being one of the few women to have done so in American history. Thus, the newspapers were sure to cover when she dropped out.
The news sources consulted were all similar—in fact, they were all named rather similarly. For example, the title of the CNN article was “Elizabeth Warren Ends Her Presidential Campaign” (Diaz et al., 2020), the Business Insider article was titled “Elizabeth Warren Drops Out of the 2020 Presidential Race” (Relman and Sheth, 2020), and the New York Times article was titled “Elizabeth Warren, Once a Front-Runner, Drops Out of Presidential Race” (Goldmacher and Herndon, 2020). This should indicate that the articles were all rather similar in nature. They covered news objectively without bias or considering personal preferences.
Though these news stories all similarly covered Warren’s dropout from the 2020 Presidential race, there were obviously differences between the different coverages when it came to the who, the what and the how. Some sources, Fox News in particular, diversified sources by pulling quotes from multiple sources, while some stuck to the basics, only covering who was immediately important to the story.
Sources sometimes used different wording to describe people in a story, but they usually stuck to similar principals, using slightly different words to insinuate the same meaning.
The coverage of stories such as Warren dropping out are important because news sources have an obligation to the public to give straight news. While it is fine for news to occasionally take its own stance on a matter, they must be held responsible to report accurately.
References
Diaz, D., Krieg, G., Lee, M., and Sullivan, K. (2020, March 5). Elizabeth Warren ends her presidential campaign. CNN Politics, Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/politics
Goldmacher, S. and Herndon A. (2020, March 5). Elizabeth Warren, Once a Front-Runner, Drops Out of Presidential Race. The New York Times, Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com
Jamerson, J. (2020, March 5). Elizabeth Warren Drops Out of Presidential Race. The Wall Street Journal, Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com
Olson, T., Prindiville, T., and Steinhauser, P. (2020, March 5). Warren drops out of 2020 race, declines to make endorsement for now in Sanders-Biden showdown. Fox News, Retrieved from https://www.foxnews.com
Relman, E. and Sonam, S. (2020, March 5). Elizabeth Warren drops out of the 2020 presidential race. Business Insider, Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com
Senne, S. (2020, March 5). Warren Declines To Endorse, Talks About Support From ‘All Those Little Girls.’ National Public Radio, Retrieved from https://www.npr.org
Thompson, A. (2020, March 5). Elizabeth Warren drops out. Politico, Retrieved from https://www.politico.com