Abstract
The Foreign newspapers play an important and effective role in shaping the international opinion towards lots of issues and events, especially in the transitional stages and the conflict world zones.
The international arena witnessed lots of controversies about the role of the foreign press in covering crisis events in the Arab World in the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions. These controversies revealed lots of problems facing these newspapers in their way of dealing with the Arab world countries, especially in the light of accusations of using crises and picking selected information that support the pro-states and implement their interests. In this context, the study attempts to find out the extent of bias in Anglo-American newspapers in shaping the press coverage of the crisis that happened between Saudi Arabia and Iran because of the execution of Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. Nimr was one of 47 people Saudi Arabia executed for terrorism.
In addition, it tackles the factors affecting the coverage, whether related to editorial policy in the newspaper or agenda interests in international relations and attitudes of state policies towards the events taking place.
This paper depends on two methods: The Survey Method (Content Analysis) and the Comparative method. The paper will use both quantitative and qualitative analyses.
The paper time frame starts at the beginning of the crisis which was at the 2nd of January 2016 and ends by the 31st of January.
The two newspapers that are included in this paper are The New York Times, and The Guardian Weekly.
