MSNBC vs Fox News on Trump's "Pocahontas" Remark

12/3

MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/event-honoring-native-american-vets-trump-cant-help-himself

Fox (0:00 to 2:59 relevant to this discussion): http://video.foxnews.com/v/5665923514001/?#sp=news-clips

While reading the news today, I encountered a news story about President Trump's most recent offensive comment. During an event to honor Navajo Code Talkers, he said, “You were here long before any of us were here. Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas.” I immediately wondered, "What does Fox News have to say about this same incident? Do they deny that Trump's comment was racist? Do they defend his case?" So, I searched the website for Fox News and found the video above, in which this event is discussed for the first few minutes.

I immediately noticed the tone of the man reporting the story. He said with a mockingly dramatic voice and a grimace on his face, "Alright! According to Cable News it was the WORST POLITICAL MOMENT IN HISTORY!" He then showed the video clip of Trump's remark and said, "It's just beautiful. But that sent the chatter-balls chatter-balling." Then, clips of other reporters covering the story (and discussing the remark as a racial offense) appeared. Gutfeld was mocking those accusing Trump's comment of being offensive, which proved to be the polar opposite feeling than I received from a story about the same incident on MSNBC. The author, Steve Benen, wrote, "Donald Trump’s history with Native Americans has long been troubled...Today, the president found a new way to make that relationship vastly worse." He focuses much of his article on the reasons Trump's joke was offensive, while Gutfeld spends most of his time discussing why the incident should never be considered offensive and ridiculing those who might think it so.

I also noticed very different uses of the word "comment". Although the two sources discussed the event from completely different viewpoints, they used this word with significantly different intended connotations. Fox News used "comment" to describe a: suggestion, side-note, or statement, while MSNBC clearly intended "comment" as a synonym for: quip, joke, or small-minded insult. While the denotation of the word stayed the same, the tones of the two arguments regarding this event were so vastly different that new connotative meanings arose from this seemingly neutral word.