User:Psw8/sandbox

National Media Coverage
National Media coverage of the Occupy Wall street Movement (OWS) can be clearly characterized as reactive in nature. Brian Stelter summarized national journalistic coverage as minimal in the first days of the occupation in New York, but picked up soon after amateur video surfaced online showing a police officer using pepper spray on protesters. On several occasions, video of confrontations with the police, often filmed by the protesters, has propelled television coverage. It seems that early clashes between protesters and authorities were good press, but media outlets could still not distill or illustrate the underlying principles that galvanized this movement—frustration associated with Wall Street and the disparity (real or perceived) created by a capitalist system at large. For example, the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism indicated that the movement occupied 10 percent of its sample of national news coverage in the week beginning Oct. 9, then steadily represented about 5 percent through early November. Coverage dipped markedly, to just 1 percent of the national news hole, in the week beginning Nov. 6, However, coverage rebounded strongly after evictions in Zuccotti Park began. Finally, others have argued that media bias by networks like Fox News has played a significant role in downplaying the OWS movement. For example, John Carney at CNBC.com. wrote, “Unlike many protest movements, Occupy Wall Street has refused — so far — to issue a manifesto or a list of demands, “This leads many outsiders to wonder whether or not there really is a point to Occupy Wall Street at all”. What is certain is that the movement has garnered national attention and will likely continue to affect the discourse by politicians, pundits and the like.

Media Converage of Drone Strikes in Pakistan
Multiple media outlets have documented the onging United States' CIA Drone program in Pakistan. American, international, and Pakistani media outlets have provided fact-based reporting from the inception of the CIA's program in 2004. The New America Foundation is a U.S. non-profit, non-partisan public policy think-tank in Washington, D.C. In 2010, it sponsored journalist Peter Bergen and researcher Katherine Tiedemann to co-author “The Year of the Drone, An Analysis of U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan, 2004-2012”. Their study, composed of a year-by-year analysis,cataloged known U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. The authors compiled accounts from numerous reliable media organizations and collated them in "easy-to-use" color-coded map. Thus, users can easily find and read corroborating news stories detailing each Drone Strike from dozens of different news sources by clicking on the interactivepushpins.

News outlets from across the media spectrum consistently reported on U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. More importantly, they have also provided analysis, discussion and debate concerging the merits of U.S. Drone Strikes from differing legal, moral, ethical, and political viewpoints. Patrick B. Pexton of the Washington Post contends that investigative reporting is one of the prime functions of newspapers and the media at large. Mr. Pexton also states that readers want fact-based, hard–hitting investigation that keep the people honest and hold our institutiontions and government accoutable for their actions. If this is indeed true, 30 April, 2012 was another pivotal day in the Drone program debate. The Obama Administration publically acknowledged the once “covert” CIA Drone program targeting terrorist networks across Pakistan's Federal Admistered Tribal Area (FATA). President Obama stated, “Drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties. For the most part, they have been very precise precision strikes against Al Qaeda and their affiliates,” he said during an online chat hosted by YouTube and Google+ last week. “This is a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists who are trying to go in and harm Americans, hit American facilities and American bases".     As a result, the Drone debate moved to the forefront of American public discourse.  At the center of the debate, is the use of targeted killing and drone warfare.  The President also stated, "[U]nderstand that probably our ability to respect the sovereignty of other countries and to limit our incursions into somebody else's territory is enhanced by the fact that we are able to pinpoint strike on al-Qaeda operative in a place where the capacities of that military in that country may not be able to get them." And he added: "Obviously, a lot of these strikes have been in the FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas] in going after al-Qaeda suspects who are up in very tough terrain in the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. For us to be able to get them in another way would involve probably a lot more intrusive military action than the one we are already engaging in".   In short, America’s policy of targeted killing vis a vis Drone Strikes will undoubtably remain center stage in American as well as international public discourse.  More importantly, the media will play a fundamental role in defining the legal, moral, ethical, and political arguments that will ultimately shape U.S. public opionion and future Obama administration policy.