Truth is not Truth

Part I:

I chose this image of Donald Trump appearing to yell at a kid mowing the White House lawn because of how widely it was shared on Twitter by left-leaning people who oppose the President, and I suspected that somebody might have doctored it, knowing the incendiary effect it would have, to further divide opinion about Trump.

After doing a reverse image search, I came to the conclusion that the photo was not altered. Many magazines with certain credibility such as Esquire had published the photo, which I took as a good sign, and nobody seemed to refute the photo. Questions remain over whether the original image that was uploaded was not doctored.

Part II:

On September 2, 2018, a week after Senator John McCain’s death, the New York Times published “Meghan McCain’s Eulogy Shows She Is Forged in Her Father’s Image”, a profile of the late John McCain’s daughter Meghan McCain. Written by White House correspondent Katie Rogers, it is a credible take on the characteristics of Meghan McCain that incorporates several sources high on the PIE index and seeks to persuade readers of  her similarity to her father.

The author of the article, Katie Rogers, has no overt biases in her history of reporting that I could find, which indicates a certain independence from any cross-interests. Furthermore, she has built her career on reporting on political issues and writing profiles of people in the public eye, so she has an established expertise in this area. However, it is true that her proximity to Ms. McCain is non-existent – she has never met her in person. Overall, I believe these qualities make her a mostly reliable source that can be trusted in reporting on Ms.McCain, because she makes up for her lack of proximity by contacting sources very close to Ms. McCain through email.

The first source that appears in the article is by Joy Behar, Ms. McCain’s co-star on the ABC program “The View”. Ms. Behar is very close to McCain, and has had the opportunity to know her for a while, so her proximity is impeccable. Her expertise on the subject, in this case Ms. McCain, can be reasonably inferred to be good due to the amount of time she has spent with her. The only fault that could be found with the use of Ms. Behar as a source would be her independence, as she might feel compelled to say only positive things about Ms. McCain is such a sensitive moment for her after her father’s death. However, I believe that the risk of this minimal. Overall, Ms. Behar is a credible and useful source to utilize in the writing of the article.

Katie Rogers uses a further two sources that are very close to Ms. McCain; Senators Joseph I. Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, two men that Ms. McCain has referred to as surrogate “uncles” because of how close they were to her and her family. Both Lieberman and Graham are very close to McCain, have no apparent crossed interests, and know Ms. McCain well. These are both useful sources that further the credibility of the article.

Finally, Rogers also references Ken Cuccinelli, a former attorney general of the state of Virginia and outspoken Trump supporter, and his comments in a tweet that Ms. McCain should stay out politics during a funeral. The source, however, gives the appearance of having been used by Rogers as a “See? I haven’t omitted opposing viewpoints on McCain” because of how fast she moves on from that counterclaim, failing to address it, and returning to her main argument of trying to persuade the reader of Meghan McCain’s strength.

This is my main gripe with the article, because I feel that Rogers left out more constructive disagreements that could have challenged Ms. McCain’s decision to politicize her father’s funeral. The omission of these other viewpoints lessen the article as a whole, which would have benefited from it.

In conclusion, although Katie Rogers’ motivation is to persuade the reader, she uses good evidence in the form of sources high on the PIE index, and all that she says logically follows from what has been said previously about Meghan McCain; that she is strong-willed and a maverick similar to her late father. Thanks to her inclusion of short, succinct paragraphs that compress ideas Rogers is able to hold her audiences attention and transmit a message that is meant to be interpreted as an honest characterization of Meghan McCain, although others might take it as another example of the mainstream media glorifying individuals who oppose Trump.