Framing Current Events
A current event that is being framed is the crisis in Egypt. The conflict is coming from anti-government protestors who are against the Mubarak party currently in power in Egypt. The U.S. media is portraying the crisis as though the government is trying to suppress the people from protesting. They are making the Egyptian government look like they are tyrannical and controlling. For instance in one of their articles FoxNews.com states, “For decades, Egyptians have endured brutality and corruption at the hands of police, and fear is a part of their fiber.” Fox News is framing the situation so that the protestors look like the good guys who have the right to protest against a government they agree against. The government is portrayed as the bad guys that are taking away the people’s rights. In America the right to protest is one that is very important to people so the media is looking at the situation from the American point-of-view.
However, in other parts of the world or other media outlets, the crisis in Egypt could be looked upon as the government trying to protect the people from Egypt from the dissenters and rebels. It might not be portrayed as a violation of basic human rights, but as a way of suppressing chaos for the people’s own good.
This crisis is very similar to the situation in the Middle East. The U.S. media showed the Middle East as a place where people had no rights, but from the Middle Eastern governments’ points-of-view it could be looked upon as a way to make their country more powerful.
To be able to have more balanced coverage of events such as the Egyptian one, the media would have to just list the facts of what is happening and offer no thoughts on the topic. Most media outlets do not do this because it would make for boring stories. Sharing views and opinions on a situation is what people want.
Overall, the Egyptian crisis is covered by the U.S. media from the American ideal of government. Therefore, it is very biased. We may tend to believe that American democracy is the only right form of government, but there are many people from other countries that would look at it another way.
Media&Culture 
Hi Sean,
For the most part this post is well done, and I will give you credit for it on Blackboard. I will just ask you to consider a few ideas. Your analysis of how the topic could be framed in a more balanced way is a little off I think. Technically, journalists really are meant to, and mostly do, just present facts and quote the opinions of a range of people from different sides of the issue. We do not expect views and opinions to be overtly expressed by our news sources except for in the editorial form. The idea of framing is that a story might be presented from a particular angle by quoting certain people and not others, presenting some facts and not others, picturing some things and not others etc. Even the quote you gave from Fox News is ostensibly “just presenting facts;” they happens to be extremely value laden “facts,” but they ostensibly remain within the bounds of reporting.
Also, you compare the situation in Egypt with that in the Middle East without acknowledging that Egypt is part of the Middle East, which confuses the issue a bit.