North Dakota Pipeline Evictions Analysis

After months of clashes from protestors and the police, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued an eviction notice to the Dakota access protest camps. News articles such as Dakota pipeline protest camp: Ten arrested, dozens more believed to remain after evacuation deadline, by Mark Berman from the Washington Post and Arrest made in North Dakota, as group of pipeline protesters remain at camp, by William Lajeunesse from Fox News, describe the event that happened on the day of the eviction that resulted with their readers concluding with different implications of the event. Lajeunesse and Berman defined key ideas that shaped the view of their readers. They both choose to give and omit specific information that give their readers one side of the eviction. They also provided information in a way to influence their reader’s inferences. The information that is presented by

Lajeunesse decides to use a quote from North Dakota Highway Patrol Lt. Tom Iverson, quoting that “the protesters taken into custody were among a group of several dozen people who began taunting officers.” This quote gives a very negative perception of the protesters as criminals. Lajeunesse also decides provide information that further skew the perception of the protesters as criminals by going into detail about what items where left behind saying, “Teepees and yurts, thousands of sheets of plywood and tents, kerosene and propane stoves, diesel and gasoline generators, food, clothing, cars and mountains of human waste lie in what was once a pristine floodplain” Berman decides to instead use a quote from the Standing Rock Siuox tribe, quoting that “it was closely monitoring law enforcement activity at the camp and called on ‘everyone to remain peaceful.’” Using the Standing Rock Siuox tribe quote instead gives the reader idea that the arrests were