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Abigail Slama-Catron

Mrs. McKay

IB Language Arts SL

07 October 2021

The Criminal Effects of Talking About Criminal Justice

Criminal Justice reform has been blatantly talked about throughout the media, whether

that’s news articles, books, movies, or political cartoons. While the act of reforming this entire

system is always undergoing new processes and new understandings, the media coverage

captures it all. Two different pieces of media can compare and contrast the differences of the

author’s opinions on criminal justice reform and show blatant differences. Both news articles and

political cartoons can help with conveying a message that the author or illustrator wants to say.

The main difference between the two is how they convey that message.

Political cartoons have a level of formality that is much lower than one of a new article.

Political Cartoons’ responsibility is to exaggerate what the author is trying to say with images.

The author only has limited words to get their point across, so the more exaggerations to

symbolize the issue gets the opinion across (Knieper, "Political cartoon"). While there are

exaggerations in news articles, there is a clear distinction between the article and the political

cartoon. News Articles use facts, evidence, and analysis to get the opinion across. Instead of

exaggerating with images, the news articles take more formally persuasive techniques. With the

help of using reasoning and facts, these articles get their opinion across with the lack of

informality. While both the political cartoon and news article had the same opinion to prove, the
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lack formality of the image or the formality of the news article has the essential difference in

getting the point across.

The social commentary that political cartoons provide a free way to have artists liberate

themselves creatively from the appearance of political correctness that pervades most

entertainment media (Danies,“Cartoons provide much-needed social commentary”). Political

cartoons can generate a better understanding of the issue in a much simpler way with just a

simple image rather than an entire news article. “The author of a commentary probably has

in-depth knowledge of the topic and is eager to present a new and/or unique viewpoint on

existing problems, fundamental concepts, or prevalent notions” (Berterö, “Guidelines for writing

a commentary”). News articles have a commentary on the basis of evidence, knowledge, and the

ability to analyze both sides of the issue. Unlike the political cartoon, the articles have to make

sure of every word, phrase, or paragraph for political correctness and have to have that formality

that political cartoons lack. Civil rights issues have to be perceived with more professional

commentary for the news articles which is very different than the entertainment striven political

cartoons have.

Persuasion is the most important technique for both a political cartoon and news

article. Without persuasion, the commentary of both media would be meaningless. The

persuasive techniques for political cartoons are very different from one of the news articles,

using five key techniques. Symbolism, exaggeration, labeling, analogy, and irony are what

political cartoonists use to persuade the reader of their viewpoint (Knieper, "Political cartoon").

These techniques paint bold pictures and are a simple way to get the point across without any

question. The analysis of evidence is what creates a strong backbone to a persuasive news article.
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Without evidence, an entire news article will be brushed away as nothing more than an opinion

piece, an editorial. Using the evidence to further prove the point with analysis can be the

persuasion to finalize the point that was trying to be made with the evidence. Authors of both the

news article and political cartoon can prove the opinion in the different respective ways because

of the persuasion tactics used to finalize the point.

While there are many differences between political cartoons and news articles, both

media have one common purpose. The main point is to convey a message to the audience about a

certain issue, and although the steps to conveying a message are relatively the same they are

completely different at the same time. Formality of an article is professional while a political

cartoon needs to have the informal entertainment side of the image. The social commentary of a

political cartoon means that there is not a need to have political correctness while a lack of

political correctness will discredit a news article. Evidence and analysis are what persuades a

reader on a viewpoint in a news article while having exaggerated elements and analogies are

what create a persuasive political cartoon. The message conveyed in both of the media can be

clearly understood in that respective way. Political cartoons and news articles will take different

courses of action to prove the point, but the final message will be conveyed by the final sentence

of an article or by the final stroke of a marker.

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Work Cited

Berterö, Carina. “Guidelines for writing a commentary.” International journal of qualitative

studies on health and well-being vol. 11 31390. 11 Mar. 2016,

doi:10.3402/qhw.v11.31390

Danies, Chris. Cartoons provide much-needed social commentary, The Sundial, 3 Feb. 2006,

sundial.csun.edu/5240/archive/cartoonsprovidemuchneededsocialcommentary/.

Knieper, Thomas. "Political cartoon". Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Feb. 2018,

McArdle, Megan. "The Biggest Problem with the criminal justice reform bill." Longview

News-Journal, Dec. 30 2018,

https://www.news-journal.com/opinion/mcardle-the-biggest-problem-with-the-criminal-j

ustice-reform-bill/article_bdfef6ca-0b86-11e9-9920-4314ccb489c7.html

Robert Cherry, opinion contributor. “The Downside of Criminal Justice Reform.” TheHill, The

Hill, 2 Sep. 2021,

thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/570098-the-downside-of-criminal-justice-reform.