1. In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, media portrayal of the citizens of New Orleans varied wildly. The Times Picayune consistently portrayed them as desperate and abandoned by both the local and federal government. On the other hand, The New York Times, Fox, and The Houston Chronicle initially portrayed the government as well-prepared and the citizens who stayed in the city as foolish. After the levees broke, however, The New York Times reversed its position and became far more critical of the government and more sympathetic to the plight of the people. The Houston Chronicle also gradually became more critical of the government, but instead of portraying the people sympathetically, it and Fox began to portray the residents of New Orleans as a threat to the authorities and the cities taking them in.

[#1 is a solid A thesis. Clear on topic, sources, patterns, and how the patterns compare. It is somewhat lengthy, but that’s necessary to get across all of this information. It isn’t redundant and doesn’t waste time. Be careful with adjectives/adverbs like “wildly,” but if the evidence supports your claim, they are fine for getting across the extent of the differences in patterns.]

  1. Although all of these news outlets supported the shift to democracy in Iraq, they focused on different concerns in the lead-up to the first election.Most of CNN’s reporting was highly emotional, and painted the elections as a victory for the Iraqi people, often includingstories about women and religious minorities braving death to cast a vote. On the other hand,Fox and The Wall Street Journal portrayed the foray into democracy as a victory for America and as a tangible sign of the war’s success. Al Jazeera’s coverage was the most detailed and also became the most pessimistic, questioning the integrity of the voting process and speculating about what would happen if religious conservatives were voted into power.

[#2 is also an A thesis. Once again, clear on topic, sources, patterns, and how the patterns compare. These patterns are obviously different from the ones in the thesis #1. What’s here is more complex, with sources all generally leaning in the same direction, but differing in focus/tone. The bit about CNN including stories “about women and religious minorities braving death to cast a vote” is a little more detailed than one might want in a thesis—but it does clarify the “highly emotional” description, and so is permissible. Ideally, the specificity might come across in a rewording of the ‘highly emotional” phrase, but this works, too. Just don’t get MORE specific about evidence type stuff in the thesis. Al Jazeera is doing something rather different from the other three, and this description is fairly clear about that—just be careful when you have a situation like this that you don’t fall into the trap of just saying “This source addressed this side of the issue. This other source focused on this.” You don’t want to just summarize focus—you need to make an argument about slant. The slant of the sources comes through here. Make sure it does in your thesis as well.]

  1. The frenzy of reporting that accompanied the first case of Ebola in Texas revealed the sharp contrast in the bias of several news sources. The two main newspapers in Houston and Dallas disagreed entirely about the degree of danger the case posed to the public and also about the potential success of the experimental serum treatment.Like the Dallas paper, Fox played on the audience’s fears of an outbreak, but also quickly politicized the issue, using those fears as a way to criticize Obama’s response to the situation. The British news source, the BBC, covered the story more dispassionately, choosing to focus less on the potential for an outbreak and more on the results of the serum treatment and the implications it had for turning the tide in the fight against Ebola in Africa.

[#3 is a still a solid thesis, but more in A-/B+ territory. Clear on topic—but a bit less specific about sources and patterns (I can figure them out, but it takes a little bit more legwork from me). The ways in which the patterns compare is still clear, which helps. For example, I know the main newspapers in both cities, and since we are told that the Dallas paper is on the same wavelength as Fox, I can deduce that it is stoking the fears of an outbreak. On the other hand, I know the Houston paper is doing the opposite, so they must be trying to calm the fears and remain more factual. The BBC seems not to care all that much about the Dallas case for itself, as its focus seems to be the larger concerns involving Africa. Don’t get more vague than this thesis when writing your own.]