An Alarming Agreement

This week I am taking my blog in a different direction. As most of you know by now, this blog is supposed to highlight the difference between the media in the states and the media across the pond, but this week we are going to highlight the similarities. It is very rare that you get the United States and the majority of the continent of Europe agreeing on something in general, let alone the use of military in another country. While I have some what neglected the topic of ISIS in the blog thus far, today we will highlight its effect on the U.S. and Europe. For the first time since 9/11, both our country and the majority of Europe have decided to use military action or support the Iraqi and Kurdish people in some way. This is significant in many ways. Not only does this rarely happen, but it also means that this terrorist group is funded, armed, and networked to the point that we have gotten all of these countries to agree. The majority of the media in the U.S. and in Europe believe that this group has the capability to be more destructive and powerful than Al Qaeda. Not only that, but this group has also caused other terrorist groups to fight for relevancy again, they want to be the top dog. The fact that you are having officials and scholars from both side of the pond agreeing on how devastating this group can be is very alarming and should continued to be reported on (along with other international news) both here and abroad. 

Two Stories, Equal Attention

This weeks post is more or less a continuation of the last post regarding the lack of coverage of the growing crisis with Russia. To begin, yes there was a cease fire agreement reached between the rebels and Ukraine, but that by no means that this crisis is over or winding down. While there may be an absence of physical fighting, the tactics by both sides have not ceased. Our allies across the pond have continued to place sanctions, France stopped the delivery of a Russian naval vessel, and at the NATO summit held in Whales there was lobbying for Ukraine to join the organization. On the other side, Russia has continued it's rhetoric, it severely warned Ukraine against its lobbying, threatened France on its delay of the delivery, and in wake of the increased sanctions by the rest of Europe, Russia has threatened to close off its air space to European planes. Don't be surprised if all of this information is new to you.....its not your fault. Just to remind those of you who may be new to my blog, the theme behind it is our relation with Europe and how our medias vastly differ, and the reason that some of the information I laid out above might sound new to you is because the media over here has barely touched on it. Yes there was some coverage on the NATO summit but that was in correlation to the ISIL situation, and yes there was some mention of France halting its delivery of the ship but that barely lasted a day, but if you where interested enough to visit one of the major European news papers, a lot of their headlines where in regards to Russia. The most interesting thing to take away from this is the fact that Europe is dealing with ISIL too, they are probably even more effected by it, but their media has managed to split the focus between the two highly important situations. I said it in my first post and I will say it again, I am by no means taking anything away from the importance of the ISIS crisis. All I am pointing out is that even though it's not the most flashy of news stories, the American media outlets need to keep equal attention on the the situation going on in Ukraine, if the European outlets can do it so can the American ones, because this situation has potential world war implications.

More than one headline

This post is in the wake of the second beheading of and American by the terrorist group ISIS, which is undoubtedly a very big headline and a very unfortunate circumstance. The content of this post however isn't about this horrific incident, it is instead about another major political news story, one that has drifted out of focus on all major U.S. news sites. The news story that I am talking about is the Ukrainian crisis, and over the past couple days there have been serious moves by Russia that have been put on the back burner in the U.S. media. This isn't the first time since the start of the Ukrainian/Russia crisis that the ongoing story has been forgotten, during the however long Ferguson controversy, the potential war starting incident was all but ignored by all major U.S. news sites. In Europe however this story is still on the front page. The importance of this news story is astronomical, and has major implications attached to it, and even though there are other major headlines that need to be reported on, the media, no matter which way they swing the story, should keep this story relevant to the U.S. given it's potential implications.

The reason this story is a headline on European sites is because it is in their backyard, they have a first hand view of events unfolding, and they more than anyone understand the potential implications. While Ukraine has been a headline in the U.S. media before, it has lost it's luster and therefore been set aside for the time being for stories covering how celebrities personal photos have been hacked and leaked (clearly far more important than a countries sovereignty). This is just a small example of our ever growing disconnect with the continent we once aligned with.
 
Below I have attached an example of a headline from the BBC Europe (it was the headline story).

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29029060

Welcome

For my mass media and politics blog I have decided to write about the relationship between the United States and Europe. The reason that I have chosen this topic is because I feel over the last 14 years or so, due to certain circumstances, the media has diverted its attention else where leaving Europe a relatively unknown situation to general public of the U.S.. Europe is home to some of the worlds most powerful countries, countries that we as a nation should have a vested interest in and should pay serious attention to. The goal of this blog is to help show how the decisions made across the pond effect our country and the decisions we make.