State of the Media

President Barack Obama addressed America as to the state of our union. People wrote articles about it. People wrote blogs about it. In an ideal world, all three of these media would portray the same ideas. However, the speech, the articles and the blogs may relay different messages. It was our job as a class to get to the bottom of this dilemma.
Newspapers across the country produced articles covering President Obama's speech the morning after. I read articles from The New York Times, Politico, and the Raleigh News & Observer without watching the speech to figure out how well the papers portrayed the speech's overall message.
After reading a total of six articles - 3 Times, 2 Politco, 1 N&O - I finally felt that I had a good sense of the message of the speech. Each article portrayed a fairly similar sense of the president's tone. They all seemed to portray that the president let down his usually proper tone to be more colloquial. From the articles, I deduced that the president was trying to please everyone. He chastised both parties, while not really introducing any new sweeping agenda. None of the articles went in depth as to the policy that he put forward, but I was able to piece it together by reading them all. It basically seemed as though the president was "downsizing his ambitions" as one article put it. The articles all gave the impression of a "don't give up on me" tone from the president.
From listening to a summary of the actual speech from a group of my peers who only watched and didn't read any reviews, the articles more or less captured the overall feel of the speech while coming up a little short on policy points.
Reading solely articles about the speech without watching the speech was an effective way of getting an idea of what the speech consisted of, but was certainly not the most effective way. With links to the full audio of the speech and a readable file, I was able to access the speech through these online articles.
People who read only blogs about the speech seemed to think that they were rather effective after reading more than one blog. Reading only one was too one-sided, they said.
I think, if given the choice, I would prefer to watch the speech and not read any commentary. Although it is nice to get a different perspective and some background information through the blogs and articles, I trust myself enough to filter through what's being said in order to get the meat of the message. The best option would be to combine all three methods however, getting the ambiance of the live speech, the research of the articles and the down-to-earth style of the blogs.
I also would've liked to watch the live speech because I haven't been able to sit through an entire SoU Address for the last eight years. This is not to say that I disagree with everything that the former president did while in office, his rhetoric was just not something I agreed with. The new president, despite what he has or has not done in his first year, is a captivating and enthralling speaker - something that America has missed out on since President Clinton.
Overall, the article approach, the blog approach and the live speech approach all seemed to be fairly effective. The most effective route would be to combine the three media. Personally, I would have preferred to watch the speech because I like to formulate my own opinions, be them right or wrong, and I actually like to listen to this president.