December 10th: Jussie Smollett Found Guilty
In January of 2019, Jussie Smollett reported that he was a victim of a hate crime to several police and detectives. Smollet was charged with 6 counts of disorderly conduct and found guilty in 5 on the grounds that his reports were false. CNN’s Melissa Mahtani discussed the event in an article titled Jussie Smollett found guilty of falsely reporting a hate crime. Fox News's Andres Mark Miller wrote the article Biden, Harris led a frenzy to amplify Jussie Smollett's false hate crime claims for the same subject.
CNN’s report was composed of real-time updates on the trial from start to finish. Mahtani describes various members of Smollett’s legal team’s physical appearances and reactions throughout the event. There is an outline included of several key points made in Smollett's personal testimony describing his perspective while denying the orchestration of attention-seeking hoax hate crime. Ending with a statement from Smollett’s legal team disagreeing with the jury’s verdict while emphasizing innocence and explaining their plans to appeal, the CNN article focuses on providing a detailed outline of the courtroom events.
The Fox News article takes a very different approach while emphasizing the political repercussions and consequences related to Jussie Smollett’s court case. This article provides several examples of politicians showing support for Smollett since the January 2019 reports were made. This includes Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Reverend Al Sharpton, Pete Buttigieg, and more. Focusing on the statements made by multiple liberal figureheads, now ruled as false, the article intends to discredit these individuals. The article portrays complete support for the court’s ruling as guilty and takes the side of special prosecuted Dan Webb as he is quoted for a conclusion to the piece.
With differing intentions in each of their reports, CNN and Fox News present very different portrayals of the Smollett case. CNN attempts to remain more neutral than Fox News when presenting the defendant’s intentions of appealing as not guilty after disagreeing with the court’s verdict while Fox does not present any acknowledgment of this. Fox, however, focuses on the public’s reactions to this case and how it can alter the perspective of certain leaders while CNN does not include any of this information.