The most important tool for any democracy is information. Because by definition the supreme authority within a democracy rests with the people, mass communication becomes an essential element of informed decision making by that aggregate authority. In this way, any manipulation or lack of factual information has serious negative implications for the ability of a body of people to act consciously on its own behalf. Only an informed citizenry can participate in the cognizant decision-making process necessary for the advancement of its own needs.

The question then arises as to the current state of mass communication within democracies. Are the media that communicate on a mass scale fulfilling their roles as scrupulous disseminators of information? What biases exist that may affect how the information is presented? How do the effects of these biases translate into the idea of an informed citizenry? All of these inquiries tap into the wide-ranging social implications of mass media. What follows is an analysis of a selected group of American mass media outlets for the purpose of determining strengths, weaknesses, similarities, differences, and biases, all in the context of their

Day two of The Washington Times’ coverage takes a similar approach. WT-2 takes a more dramatic angle than WT-1, but once again, there is a clear attempt to provide relevant background, framed from a fairly neutral position. And once again, it is not free from personalization and authority-disorder bias. This is the story of a non-official peace proposal, which the author still explains in official terms. Different points of the proposal are described in terms of the opposition by officials on both sides, while the popular movement behind the idea is given brief space. Though the historical context in which the article is presented is beyond that of the whole of The New York Times’ articles, the drowning out of the non-official voice still serves to fragment the larger picture.

Some topics in this essay:
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