The simple way to spot media bias
Published Fri, Oct 17 2008 1:02 PM
All media is biased. It's a fact of life, and not something we should be surprised by. From before the foundation of our country, the media has been biased. During George Washington's presidency, media bias was flagrant coinciding with the birth of faction or party politics in our nation's infancy. Some newspapers printed all kinds of libel, calling it news.
Today's media sometimes seems little different, often “spinning” the news or injecting opinion in what ought to be “objective” news stories. Now there's nothing wrong with a newspaper showing bias on it's opinion pages. Nor is there anything wrong with radio talk show personalities showing their bias — they're not newscasters after all. And, there's nothing wrong with bloggers showing their bias either, that's what they're all about anyway.
There's something wrong though when a newspaper, a television “news” broadcast, or a radio “news” broadcast allows their bias to creep into what is purportedly “news”.
A lot of my liberal friends think that Fox News is biased to the right. I disagree, at least in part. Many of the “opinion” shows on Fox News are indeed biased to the right, although some are not. The “news” presented on Fox though, is much more center oriented, and trending leftward daily. The same people that think that Fox News is biased to the right seem to hold similar opinions of the other major media, or to think that they're neutral. News organizations like CBS, NBC, ABC, The New York Times, and the Washington Post. You know, the news organizations that many on the right think are blatantly biased to the left.
Regardless of your opinions about the bias of a media organization, we all know that none of them are truly objective. Sometimes what's not covered is as much an indicator of bias as what is covered. The current fad for “fact checking” even suffers from this bias. When checking the facts, the fact checker's personal bias will often lead them to discount or exclude certain sources because of perceived bias. Some of the major fact checking organizations even spin their conclusions, ignoring the possibility that while a minor exaggeration might have crept into a statement, the statement is still fundamentally correct — and simply concluding that it's a lie. Other fact checking organizations come to completely opposite conclusions based upon the same evidence!
The New York Times has an article about an “online watchdog” that provides a browser plug-in to help you check for media bias. It's called SpinSpotter. The article goes into some detail about how it works, and whether it adequately protects against “gaming” the system. I'm somewhat skeptical about it altogether. Bias in reporting either is or isn't there. This has nothing to do with the intent of the reporter, or the conclusions of the masses. “Voting” or commenting on a news item isn't going to change whether the bias is there or not, especially when the self-selected group of people passing judgement on the bias may well be biased as well.
No, there's a much simpler way of detecting bias in the news. Think for yourself. Read the news with a critical eye, an open mind, and with some thought. Any time a “news” item makes a value judgement, it's biased. Any time a “news” item is emotionally charged, there's bias. Any time a news item expresses the opinion of the author, it's biased.
Sure, some subjects by themselves are emotionally charged. Child abuse, domestic abuse, terrorism, murder, abortion, infanticide, genocide, religion, and yes, politics all are examples. When you read a story on any of these topics, you should be on high alert for bias. That's not to say that the article can't be objective, but that you need to examine it more critically.
For example, let's consider an article about child abuse. Most of us consider child abuse to be a reprehensible act and a grave moral harm. Most of us, but certainly not all. I can point you to articles where what many of us consider to be child abuse some psychologists consider to be “normal” and even “good”. Setting that aside though, a news report of alleged child abuse can often play to our personal biases, and often does so based upon the author's own personal biases. The child abusers are vile despicable creatures that deserve to be locked up, or otherwise punished. Public opinion immediately turns against them. But… what if they're innocent? What if the entire set of charges are fabricated?
This happened a few years ago in the State of Washington. Lives and reputations were ruined. The media barely reported on that, although they were rabid about reporting on the case when it was “obvious” that the “perpetrators” were guilty.
The news media is biased toward sensationalism. Exoneration isn't sensational, unless it also points to corruption in a government official. Then it becomes sensational, but only if that official is on the “other” side.
The situation with Mark Foley comes to mind. The media was “all over” that case. There was alleged sexual misconduct with a minor. The congressman resigned over the controversy. Never mind that the page in question wasn't a minor. Never mind that things never went past some sordid text messages. Never mind that there were allegations (downplayed in the media) that the page solicited and encouraged the messages anyway. And, never mind that in the end all criminal charges in the matter were dropped — because no criminal activity took place. The major media didn't spend very much effort reporting on that though. Page one headlines when he was “accused”. I wonder what page the stories about having the charges dropped appeared on? And of course, Mark Foley's political career has been ruined (no, I'm not saying that his behavior was unobjectionable, rather that the media's bias is showing).
Conservative media outlets (yes, they've got some bias too) have made note of Mark Foley's opponent during his re-election campaign (when this “scandal”) broke out. It seems that he made hay out of Mark Foley's alleged misconduct — while he himself was engaging in sexual misconduct and adultery. It also seems that he's had not just one, but two affairs. A case of the pot calling the kettle black isn't it (… no, that's not a racist statement, any more than John McCain's reference to Bill Ayers was …)? So, where's the major media reporting on this? Didn't I say that what's not reported is as much of an indicator of bias as what is?
It's not hard to see media bias. We don't need media watchdog organizations to do it for us. We don't need special browser plug-ins.
All we really need to do is use our brains.
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ablur responded with:
 | Critical thinking skills are a rare commodity in todays world. Few process informaion and seek out secondary sources before declaring an opinion. It takes work to gather evidence filter out opinion and form your own. Few are willing to take the time or energy for such challenges.
I come here knowing your one of the few. |
D. Ox responded with:
 | True enough Perry, ever since there has been a popular press there has been efforts to use it to move opinion in one direction or another. No news can be neutral, there is always even the selection of stories that affects perceptions. And your right, no technological fix can make up for using ones brain. Use it or lose it.
I'm reminded of the old joke about lawyers... How can you tell when the media is being biased? Their lips are moving!
Take care. |
Todd Herman responded with: SpinSpotter and think for yourself
 | Perry:
Thanks for mentioning SpinSpotter and giving some thought to critical thinking versus a tool like SpinSpotter. I stand with you in the belief that people can de-spin by critical thinking. I also contend that SpinSpotter remains useful, even for truly critical thinkers (my therapist will tell you, I am a member of that group...and it's made her rich!).
A point about critical thinking in an RSS, 24-Hour news cycles. Simple memes can sneak quickly into the public mind. Think of how quickly the term "bailout" started to become "rescue package" (both are probably subjective phrase). In the info-snacking environment, people tend to read memes as Names. That makes a tidy argument for encouraging people to do more than info-snack. But, the reason are attempting to do this through a tool bar is because people have their news habits and info-snacking is a part of that. If one of our little red makers can make people stop in the middle of a news snack and look hard at a phrase a news entity may have begun treating as a proper noun ("Middle Class Tax-Cut", "War on Terror") then we have, in some way, probably done a good thing. In fact, our tool attempts to encourage users to share their critical thinking with others---and our rules set rewards that.
One of the reasons we didn't simply add every known laudatory or pejorative adjective or adverb to our systems and just go light them up in red is because any smart human can see those---if they are actually reading and not just scanning.
There are classes of spin, though, that no amount of critical thinking will easily surface. Three of our rules well describe these: Selective Disclosure, Lack of Context and Inaccurate information.
I recently sat with a very senior, well known reporter (yes...I am granting anonymity at his request because the rules of his employer don’t allow him to comment on such things) who was thinking of writing about SpinSpotter. He was thinking about writing about us and was using Spinoculars. The piece made the claim that Senator McCain had "left himself open to criticism from Saturday Night Live". That was easy enough spin for both of us to spot (don't all politicians leave themselves open to that?). But, with Spinoculars, that reporter learned that --in the exact skit to which the article referred--
Saturday Night Live also parodied Senator Obama . The SpinSpotter user had provided a link to the YouTube which allowed readers to learn what the public chose not to tell them. This reporter had literally no idea that Saturday Night Live even had someone who played Senator Obama..
While that is a silly example, there are plenty of facts that don't make it into given news stories---and which actually matter. And, while words like "Aggressive" or "Gravitas" are easily spotted as opinion, missing facts are less easily spotted. As SpinSpotter grows it is our hope that, in addition to our SpinBot lighting up all the known Spin-phrases, thousands of eyes editing one article will add much more context to any given article. That same reporter told me that SpinSpotter could “be a tremendous way to add crowd wisdom and crowd-sourced context to a news story---especially useful in the days of shortened lead-times and that faster news cycle.”
Thanks again for taking the time to write about us and for pushing critical thought.
Todd Herman |