The speech I chose to focus on for this is President Trump’s State of the Union Address https://time.com/5125174/trump-state-of-the-union-address-transcript/ and it took place as all State of the Unions do in January. Trump discussed a lot of different topics, but began the speech primarily moving with the theme of unifying Americans towards a great future, and said, “There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.” He uses inclusive language, and it becomes clear his two main issues are immigration alongside border security, as well as the economy. Though he does touch on other issues, too, and also makes a large point of introducing various heroes. He talks about the heroism of strangers during the 1 October shooting, and he thanks servicemen and women. Trump goes on to pointing out the lowered unemployment rate, tax cuts, and his vision for an America that is not about one side or the other, but instead about unity.
The framing of the speech is centered on positive unification and words that illicit non-partisan agreement with the viewers. Regardless of how factual Trump’s statements were, the perception of the speech was one that had both sides of the aisle feeling listened to or at least acknowledged. He framed a lot of what he said in phrases like “...we came together, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as representatives of the people,” and “...I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need…” The purpose of all of this was to paint a picture of the ideal America where we all have similar goals of getting ahead, being equal, and maintaining our freedom. To me his framing seemed very effective, and he was able to include many diverse and different groups into his speech instead of narrowing the scope onto just those who agree with his policies.
The first source I chose to look at is Fox News, and their coverage of Trump’s 2019 States of the Union. Beneath the footage of the speech, the caption read, “President Trump salutes the heroism of America's first responders, calls upon lawmakers to deliver for the American people and touts the strength of the U.S. economy.” This positive look at how Trump handled the address. Additionally, one of the most visual focal points of the address was actually in the audience. All of the democratic congresswomen chose to wear white, to honor the women who fought for their right to vote. The difference in coverage during this point of the address was interesting- Fox News was not as pointed about panning over the women while CNN made it a focal point as the women applauded themselves for awhile.
The second source for covering the address that I looked at is CNN, as I stated, which highlighted less of the people Trump had pointed out in the beginning of his speech as being heroic. There was more focus towards the democratic congresswomen, even when a Republican man was speaking on the opposite side, which I found interesting. The framing definitely leaned further away from a focus on Trump’s actual talking points.
Finally, I wanted to see the perspective of a foreign news source, so I looked at BBC. The BBC kept it pretty neutral, as could be expected, and their title was simply, “State of the Union: Trump hails 'new American moment' which went straight to the point. Additionally, they prefaced the transcript by saying, “In a primetime address, the Republican leader said he was "extending an open hand" to Democrats to work together.”
Overall, the three news sources were covering the same State of the Union, yet I felt like I was watching a lot of different angles of the same event. Each outlet chose to focus their attention on their own perception of what President Trump’s words were.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42882887
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/05/politics/donald-trump-state-of-the-union-2019-transcript/index.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/06/president-trumps-state-union-transcript-annotated/
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