Although the official title of this article is "Biden takes on budget impasse, meets with congressional leaders today" it is advertised on the Post Politics front page as "Obama sends Biden into budget fight with GOP." This difference in titling is reflective of a couple important issues in the Post's coverage of the story. Firstly, the article is advertised with language which uses a distinctly conflict oriented frame, which stands at odds with the more factual, less attention grabbing title featured on the story page itself. This conflict framing is actually largely at-odds with the tone of the article, which acknowledges the difficulty in reaching a compromise but also focuses on Biden's consensus-building skills and good relationship with Republicans in the House. It's significant that a title about potential cooperation was obviously rejected in favor of one which frames the discussions as a "fight." The story also makes use of some other biases we've become very familiar with in class. The following passage contains clear biases towards personalities and a win-lose dichotomy:
The shift comes after Boehner said Monday that Obama should have done more, and two days later Reid, an Obama ally, sidestepped a question about whether the administration had been doing enough before this week.Overall I was surprised to find coverage like this on the Washington Post website. I would have thought that this media outlet would cater to an especially well-informed and interested audience, and therefore would have more substantive and policy-oriented coverage.
White House officials privately do not believe a government shutdown would be a political boon to them as it was for President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. They expect both parties would be blamed for the disruption and it would hurt the economy, which they view as the biggest concern for most Americans and for next year's elections.
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