Here are some thoughts I’ve had about media bias. I use the word "media" as a plural. When I refer to a "medium," I mean a TV show, radio show, a newspaper, a magazine, a website, etc.
If you get tired of reading the beginning part, skip down to the last section (Hostile Media Bias, which is the most interesting).
More below.
A Generic Definition of Media Bias
I probably missed a few, but I’ve come up with several different types of media bias.
Political Bias is when a medium (or a reporter) consistently favors a certain political party or issue or political point of view. Fox News is right-wing; Mother Jones is left-wing. Rachel Maddow is left-wing; George Will is right-wing. Sometimes you’ll see bias about a specific issue. The Seattle Times was founded over 100 years ago and it’s been transferred down to the fourth (or fifth?) generation. At least once a year, they print an editorial about the evil unfairness of the inheritance tax, because that’s one tax that affects the owners.
Advertising Bias is when a medium either praises its advertisers or avoids criticizing them. The most egregious examples of this are the free newspapers that print an ad for a restaurant right next to a highly favorable review.
Corporate Bias is when a medium avoids reporting bad news about their corporate owners or their subsidiaries. One example of many: Both Fox News and the Wall Street Journal are owned by Rupert Murdoch. If Murdoch defends something said by Glenn Beck, is Murdoch giving his honest opinion or trying to protect his bottom line?
Label Bias is when certain code words are used for individuals or groups of people. A great example comes from wars. What’s the difference between terrorists, rebels, revolutionaries, Marxists, and freedom fighters? "Tribes" is another good code word – it usually means dark-skinned people (in Somalia or Rwanda or Pakistan, say). When the Northern Ireland troubles were ongoing, nobody ever talked about Catholic tribes and Protestant tribes. When Afghans were fighting against the USSR, they were mujahedeen. Now they’re fighting against us and they’re Taliban. Another label that bugs me is "inner-city" (which usually means African American). I could provide a zillion examples of label bias.
Herd Mentality Bias – which might be called inside-the-beltway reporting or just plain laziness – is when reporters and media talk about an issue for one reason: Other reporters and media are talking about it. So, let’s say Barack Obama bows when he meets the Japanese Emperor. In my opinion, it’s no big deal. Then Rush says something nasty about Obama. And George Will writes about it. Rachel Maddow invites someone on her show. And Jon Stewart shows the video. Fox News claims that Obama embarrassed all Americans. And Maureen Dowd writes a column. Ten people write Daily Kos diaries about it. For God’s fracking sake, just because everyone’s talking about it doesn’t mean it’s worth talking about.
Have you ever seen six-year-old kids playing soccer? They all run to the ball and there are 20 kids poking their shoes at it. At some point, the ball pops out and they all run over the new location. That’s the herd mentality.
Internet Bias is a form of gullibility. I can’t understand how people believe "if it’s on the internet, it must be true." You can find truthers, birthers, freepers, anthropogenic climate change deniers, protocols of the elders of zion, ufo people, bigfoot people, Mormons-are-going-to-hell people, crazy yogurt diets, the-world-will-end-in-2012 people, new world order masonic bilderberg tri-lateral conspiracy theorists, and so on. And that’s not even counting stuff like READ THIS IMPORTANT EMAIL AND FORWARD IT TO ALL YOUR FREINDS. Fuck me. If it’s all caps and it’s misspelled, it must be true!
The Unbiased Bias is when a reporter feels compelled to report both sides of a story. Yes, the Earth is spherical and it rotates on its axis and it revolves around the sun. You don’t need to mention the theory that Atlas is holding up the earth and standing on a turtle. The sun is not Apollo’s chariot. Atomic bombs do not contain evil demons. 99% of climate researchers agree that temperatures are going up (the other 1% are either idiots or paid shills). Jesus did not ride on dinosaurs. I know you’re trying to be fair and balanced, but at some point, you shouldn’t include a second opinion that makes no sense whatsoever.
Other Biases: I probably missed a few categories of bias. I don’t doubt I’ll be schooled.
Is Being Biased an Unethical or Bad Thing?
I would argue that it’s not so bad. I like Rachel and Keith, knowing that both of them are fairly liberal, and they’re both pretty smart. When I watch them, I know I’m probably going to agree with them. I don’t watch Beck or O’Reilly, because they’re idiots.
Some people say that news media should report just the facts and be unbiased. But that’s impossible.
Let’s say some man kills his wife and two kids and commits suicide. Maybe he lost his job and belonged to a church that said the man is superior to the woman and should provide for his family. Should that be reported?
Or let’s say an airplane crashes in Africa. The plane was made by the Russians and the airline wasn’t very good about maintenance. And the owner of the airline was a cousin of the president of the country. Should that be reported?
At some point, people who hear or read the news want to know more about the details. Reporters need to dig into the motivations and, at some point, they have to explain how something happened. It’s Hutus versus Tutsis. It’s Sunnis (who believe one thing) versus Shiites (who believe something else). The Pakistani Supreme Court overruled the President and lawyers marched in the streets. Jean Marie Le Pen is not just a conservative politician. He’s a racist French asshole who hates immigrants and gays and abortions.
It’s not possible to report in an unbiased way about Health Care Reform. Obama says one thing, Boehner says something else. Pelosi gets quoted. McCain says something totally idiotic. Reporters should be unbiased, in a general way, but they should interpret and explain as well.
Two Stories from My Life
About ten or fifteen years ago I worked with a guy who was a Republican. He was a decent person and he was very good at his job. But if we talked about politics, he would get angry and accuse me of being brainwashed by the liberal media. We eventually decided we shouldn’t talk politics with each other. Which was fine with me.
Around the same time, I met a stranger in a bar. We started talking and he told me that the media are all right-wing tools of the evil corporate overlords and they don’t report on the important issues. "Give me one example of an important issue not reported on," I said. "East Timor," he said. "So how do you know about East Timor?" I asked. He named a couple of magazines and mentioned a book by Noam Chomsky. "But those are media, which means the media are reporting on that issue," I said. He said that he was talking about mainstream media (MSM), like Time magazine or CNN or the local newspaper. I asked, "Do you read Time or watch CNN?" He said no he didn’t, because they’re right wing.
Right-wingers often believe that the MSM have a liberal bias, whereas left-wingers often believe the MSM have a conservative bias. They can’t both be right, or can they? Maybe they’re both right.
Hostile Media Bias
I saved the best part for last. Are the media actually biased? Or do we just perceive the media as biased? Here’s a link to an abstract for a study conducted in 1985 – 25 years ago. And it’s an I/P topic. Please, please, please, don’t start a flame war about Israel and Palestine. This diary is about media bias.
After viewing identical samples of major network television coverage of the Beirut massacre, both pro-Israeli and pro-Arab partisans rated these programs, and those responsible for them, as being biased against their side. This hostile media phenomenon appears to involve the operation of two separate mechanisms. First, partisans evaluated the fairness of the media's sample of facts and arguments differently: in light of their own divergent views about the objective merits of each side's case and their corresponding views about the nature of unbiased coverage. Second, partisans reported different perceptions and recollections about the program content itself; that is, each group reported more negative references to their side than positive ones, and each predicted that the coverage would sway nonpartisans in a hostile direction. Within both partisan groups, furthermore, greater knowledge of the crisis was associated with stronger perceptions of media bias. Charges of media bias, we concluded, may reflect more than self-serving attempts to secure preferential treatment. They may result from the operation of basic cognitive and perceptual mechanisms, mechanisms that should prove relevant to perceptions of fairness or objectivity in a wide range of mediation and negotiation contexts.
So, the pro-Israel people thought the media had a bias against Israel. And the pro-Arab people thought there was a bias against Arabs. Both groups thought the media were biased against them. People notice the media bias against their beliefs more than they notice the bias in favor of their beliefs. Which explains why left-wing people think the media have a conservative bias. And right-wingers think the media are a bunch of liberals.
And here’s a quote from Wikipedia’s piece about Hostile media effect (not that I necessarily believe everything I read on the internet):
This effect is interesting to psychologists because it appears to be a reversal of the otherwise pervasive effects of confirmation bias: in this area, people seem to pay more attention to information that contradicts rather than supports their pre-existing views. This is an example of disconfirmation bias.
Studies have found hostile media effects related to other political conflicts, such as strife in Bosnia and in U.S. presidential elections.
An oft-cited forerunner to Vallone's et al. study was conducted by Albert Hartorf and Hadley Cantril in 1954. Princeton and Dartmouth students were shown a filmstrip of a controversial Princeton-Dartmouth football game. Asked to count the number of infractions committed by both sides, students at both universities "saw" many more infractions committed by the opposing side, in addition to making very different generalizations about the game in general. Hartorf and Cantril concluded that "there is no such 'thing' as a 'game' existing 'out there' in its own right which people merely 'observe.' ... For the 'thing' simply is not the same for different people whether the 'thing' is a football game, a presidential candidate, Communism, or spinach."
I thought it was worth writing a diary about. And it might start a conversation.
Yes, in some ways the media are biased. But, also, if you have a political (or college football or I/P) bias of your own, you will think that the media are biased against you.