Summary of Media’s Coverage of Educational Reform. Articles from the newspapers and internet portals covered above exhibit that there is controversy over the educational reform amendments. Grani and Gorod focus on the idea that educational reform will clearly affect students. Grani’s article suggests that students are willing to adapt to reform but implies that the educational reform may not solve the issues that interviewees highlighted. Gorod suggests that there should be hesitation despite passage of the reform, as the reform comes with a lot of large and unknown changes. Delfi and Vesti also chronicle the language reform law—explaining the proposed amendments and drawing attention to what seem to be far more negatives than positives regarding the amendments. The Delfi article avoids taking sides, and merely lays out the reform (which it likely infers will be passed). This strategy is beneficial due to Delfi’s place as the most popular internet portal in Latvia, since it avoids infuriating either nationality on what is a truly polarizing subject, thus maintaining audience levels. Delfi is often supportive of policy that enables Latvian nationalism, but in this case, its article brings attention to a number of criticisms of the educational reform. This is not to the same extent as the Vesti article, which highlights three specific outlets which are highly critical of the proposed amendments. The Vesti article is outwardly hostile, highlighting multiple ways the reform is misguided, unnecessary, and unconstitutional. Euronews maintains a balance in introducing the reform, while also highlighting the pros and cons to the proposed amendments. While the article highlights the grievances shared by the Russian-speaking minority, and is attentive to those arguments, it also shares the reasoning behind those who support the proposed reform. Euronews’s coverage ensures that both of the viewpoints are covered, while appeasing the paper’s Russian-speaking audience by highlighting support behind protest of the reform and by connecting the reform law to Ukraine’s recent educational reform, which attracted the wrath of the international community. The Baltic Times also looks at the proposed reform, highlights the disapproval of Russian-speakers with regards to it, and then provides a comprehensive breakdown of the two educational amendments. The article may hold a hidden message, one that can be seen in the last two paragraphs and potentially demonstrates the paper’s view (as it’s regarded as pro-Latvian and pro- West...
