The topic chosen is bias in the media concerning politics. 

Requirements are as follows: 

This assignment asks that you pretend that you are writing a white paper for a member of Congress and other staffers who are working on an issue that includes your topic.   You were asked to research the current events that influence the state of your topic and any actions the U.S. government has taken on this issue over the last six months.  (If your topic does not have a lot of recent information you can go back up to one year.)  You should highlight the main policy or political problems and highlight any possible solutions being discussed as a mechanism for solvency. 

• Use the standard memo heading under the MEMORANDUM line

To: (readers.ames and job titles)

From: (your name and job title; hand written initials next to your name for hard copies)

Date: (Complete, current date, i.e.  January 14, 2013)

Subject: (VERY SHORT statement of memo contents(e main idea summarized.  This is similar to a title.)

Your /:3ection should be (name of a member of Congress) and staff

Your ²om3ection should be your name and the title %gislative Assistant for (your topic area).®bsp;

• Your memo should have a clear opening, body, and closing.  For this assignment, it will include two to three bullet points of what your white paper will discuss.
• Memos do not usually have bibliographies and citations. Do not use citations in the memo unless you are directly quoting a source.   For this assignment, include a bibliography as an attachment to the memo.  Designate that the memo has an attachment.  The second to last line of the memo should include the following, left justified
• White paper format:Your white paper should be organized using several subject headings:1. Introduction2. Statement of the Problem 3. Recommendation4. Conclusion Your paper should be short.  The white paper should be 2-4 pages.  Any tables or other references you want to include from your sources should be in an appendix at the end
• You should include information from at least 8 articles (either current events news articles or journal articles) on your topic drawn from the last 6 months (or year if you are having difficulty with your topic).
  • The number of articles should be based on your best judgment. You are expected to have enough content to provide a good picture of the state of your topic.  The variation here is due to the huge difference in comprehensiveness of news articles.  Some New York Times articles can be several pages long, while a one paragraph blip in the local paper will not provide as much information. 
  • You must use articles that actually provide news reporting. DO NOT USE EDITORIALS, OP-ED , OR BLOG PIECES!!!!  Your news sources should be fairly neutral, and you should avoid overly partisan sources such as FOX News and MSNBCèich are both more like op-ed sources than news reporting. 
• You should use information from at least two different interest groups or think tanks, ideally with opposing views on your topic area.  Think tanks can be non-partisan, left leaning or right leaning, so please look at the info about the organization and keep that in mind when evaluating their information.
• You should use information from at least one government agency or congressional report.
  • Rather than reading the entire report if it is long (many government reports can be as long as books from several hundred pages to thousands), use the executive summary of long documents to glean key pieces of information. Executive summaries for such documents tend to be 10-30 pages.