Introduction

Although the political conflict in Ukraine is far from being resolved and different opinions and viewpoints concerning the events in Kiev，Donetsk，Lugansk and Odessa，and the annexation of Crimea，are still to be presented in the world media，it is worth analyzing the content available so far，in particular the publications focusing on the annexation of Crimea，and the arguments used by the reporters.

We frequently believe that in order to evaluate certain events of great political importance，one should take into account the country’s cultural and historical background；the significance of the events to the country and international community，and the factor of timing. In our research we analyzed the media content devoted to the coverage of the Crimean issue which was presented by Russian and American reporters. We were particularly interested in the general tone of reporting（positive，negative，neutral），as well as the type of arguments used by the media representatives of both sides.

Methodology

The main focus of this study was the coverage of the Crimean annexation by the US and Russian media. Considering the different types of arguments，introduced within the framework of official rhetoric，we tried to analyze the main arguments presented by the media in both countries. Among the key tasks of our research were：

（1）the study of the historical background of the Crimean issue；

（2）the study of the official position of Russia and the US with respect of the Crimean annexation；

（3）comparing those to the general tone of reporting（positive-in favor of Crimea annexation；negative-against Crimea annexation，or neutral）.

The methodology，therefore，included a content analysis of articles published in the Russian and American media. We have chosen the most respected newspapers，including The Washington Post，The New York Times，Los Angeles Times，USA Today，Time，and Forbes. Speaking for the Russian media we analyzed the content of Argumenty y fakty（The Arguments and the Facts），Rossiiskaya gazeta（The Russian Newspaper），Literaturnaya gazeta（The Literary Newspaper），and Izvestia（The news）. We analyzed 52 publications that were published shortly before or after the Referendum in Crimea. However we did address a number of articles published in April，September，November and December 2014-just because the reporters’ views looked up-do-date and relevant to us. Our main selection criteria were keywords（tags-Crimea Referendum，Ukrainian crisis，Russian-American relations），as we searched for articles on the Crimean Referendum and looked both for hard news，editorial columns，and opinion articles. We examined the arguments used by the journalists and the general tone of the reporting（positive，negative，or neutral）. The final results of our observations are presented in Tables 1 and 2.

The Referendum on the status of Crimea was one of the critical events when the media’s interest reached peak（Berk，2014）. Therefore，we decided to focus on the stories published before and after the Referendum in the first half of the year（March，April，and May 2014），since they seem to be more criteria for relevance in terms of political situation then.

Literature review：journalism and political reporting

Reporting politics has always been a complicated task. According to Brants and Voltmer，the culture of political journalism is changing. Politically oriented news stories tend to be dependent more on political agendas more，rather than on an objective vision of an issue，especially if we consider the changing culture of political journalism and society as well（Brants，Voltmer，2011）. As argued by Blumler and Kavanagh，conventional norms of political journalism come under pressure，and uncertainty，differences，and controversy around them abound（Blumler，Kavanagh，1999）. Perhaps，some news bias is unavoidable. Distortions are caused by deadline pressures，human misjudgments，budgetary restraints，and the difficulty of reducing a complex story into a concise report. Selectivity is needed（Parenti，2001），however，the current practice proves that the principles of this selectivity involved very often have to do with manipulation techniques，such as，for example，labeling，suppression by omissions，preemptive assumption，slighting of content，false balancing，framing，and many others（Parenti，Ibid）.

It is true that sometimes we cannot avoid the presence of certain objective factors influencing the general tone of reporting. Nossek explains news coverage，and，in particular，foreign news coverage，as depending on a number of factors. One of the key ideas to be taken into account is the‘definition’of news：when a foreign news item is defined as‘ours’，then journalists’ professional practices become subordinate to national loyalty；when an item is‘theirs’，journalistic prof