As part of my major in English, I am required to learn about critical thinking and writing. This should also be part of the experience for anyone claiming to be a journalist, one would think. Someone hands you information, you read it, figure out whether it's worthy of dissemination to the public due to its newsworthiness, and how much of it really is fact and how much is misdirection to push for ideology or agenda.
There has been far too much bad journalism lately for the latter part of the previous paragraph. Misdirection to push for ideology or agenda is becoming too commonplace in the "fourth estate", and there probably will be no end to it.
Take, for example, a recent article on FoxNews.com, titled "State Bar of California, Civil Rights Group Spar Over Affirmative Action." Not too bad of a headline, but a bolded subheading immediately brings attention to their agenda with the piece:
Does affirmative action work? An explosive study that suggests it does not is pitting the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights against the State Bar of California in a battle over admissions data that could determine once and for all if racial preferences help or hurt minority students.
Wow, this sounds like the end-all of any argument or debate of whether Affirmative Action is a way to help those who may not have access to a level playing field as others due to their status as a minority in the US.
"Currently only about one in three African-Americans who goes to an American law school passes the bar on the first attempt and a majority never become lawyers at all," says UCLA law professor Richard Sander.
FoxNews.com, of course, does not link to the "article published in the Stanford Law Review," for which the above paragraph seems to come from, nor mention date of publication. That would allow people to see for themselves what the article actually says, and thus would certainly cause people to find out whether the quote is accurate. But this is not the worst part of the article on FoxNews.com.
Notice, if you read their story, that they never give any context to how important that first ratio is? 1 in 3 African-Americans who go to an American law school passes the bar on the first attempt. A majority never become lawyers at all.
The article argues that the State of California's Bar results are imperative to determine whether Affirmative Action's results are beneficial in some way. So wouldn't the article be better served quoting the status of those in California rather than all of the States? And how many people who go to those same law schools regardless of race pass the bar on the first attempt? And how many never become lawyers at all?
Wouldn't these be effective in showing just how strong that argument is? After all, if 1 in 3 is all that can pass the Bar on the first try for African-Americans, yet, let's say, 5 in 6 Caucasions can pass on the first try, there's a huge disparity! But the article neglects these key points.
In a quick search online, I discovered that the current rate of those who graduate law school in California who pass the bar at all is around 40%. 1 in 3 is 33%, and that is only on the first try. And that 40% was from 1998, unfortunately.
So, as you can see, not only is context important, but also giving relevant facts and results. After all, ignoring aspects of any journalistic story that can hurt your ideology or agenda is bad journalism, and it has no purpose in our society.