One Story: Two Sides

On April 21st, 2018, there was a Neo-Nazi Rally held in the small town of Newnan, which is located in Georgia.  However, depending on where you read about the event, it sounds very different. Fox News had an article entitled Neo-Nazi Rally near Atlanta Remains Mostly Peaceful, Officers say, whereas an article from the New York times was titled Neo-Nazi rally draws about 2 dozen people, and upends a small Georgia city.  From the titles alone, a difference between the coverage is evident. The New York Times article focuses on the fact that the rally only drew in a few people, yet still had a large impact on the town, whereas the Fox News article points out how it was mainly peaceful. But beyond the title, there were many differences between the coverage of the event in the two articles. Both articles detailed the 700 plus police officers in attendance, but Fox News said they were in riot gear, but the New York times simply said that they were wearing black helmets and clothes.  By calling the clothes riot gear, it seems like it may be more likely to escalate, and makes it seem like the police are more prepared to be violent.   Another key difference was the description of the counter-protesters.  The New York Times said that some of them were part of antifa, but also described signs they were carrying that said things like "Love thy neighbor" and "Newnan loves all", both of which make the counter-protesters seem more peaceful, ethical, and kind.   The Fox News article also descries the signs, but it occurs much later in the article and seems to be less important.  The New York times also focuses on how the event only had a few white nationalists, where this detail is brought up much later in the article. Fox News brings up the fact that some counter protesters were arrested in the very beginning, and the NYT article only addresses this at the very end, and focuses on the fact that the details of the arrests are unknown. 
All in all, the two articles contain mainly the same information, but the way they describe it makes it come across differently.  While the two articles don't disagree, the importance that is given to each aspect of the event is very different between the two articles.  The NYT article focuses on the lack of white supremacists and reporters in attendance, whereas the focus of the Fox News article seems to be the avoidance of violence from counter-protesters specifically, but the Neo-Nazi's as well.  This amkes it very difficult to truly understand what exactly happened at this rally, as neither of the articles seems completely true or completely false when read in conjunction with the other. 
This really opened my eyes to how even the news outlets that we tend to read or listen to can greatly change our perception of the world and the people around us, even when it comes to a relatively small issue like a very small rally.  If there are this many differences between these two articles, how much differently do we all think based on our news outlet?