Bias in the News

Fox lies. So does NBC. Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart do too. And hoo boy, does Bill O’ Reilly lie. Ask around enough, and you’ll find someone willing to tell you all about how anyone under the sun lies. Liberals laugh at Fox. Conservatives can’t stand NPR. Anytime a news story breaks, the second wave of it is everyone squawking about bias.

It wasn’t always like this. When newspapers fist started in the US, no one bothered to try and hide their bias. The Federalist was a federalist newspaper, end of story. One of the first moves of the abolitionist movement was to start a clearly abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. When you had something to day, you said it. Flat out. And you used current events to help you make your point.

Two things changed at the turn of the 19th century.

First, journalists got more more professional. Universities began offering degrees in journalism. The Society of Professional journalists established itself and produced a code of ethics for journalists to follow. All across America, bright, fresh, young people were trying harder to make journalism more professional and FABulous. That is, fair, accurate, and balanced. (My high school newspaper used the acronym. You know, in case you forgot what your ethical code was, you could at least remember to be FAB.) Nobody wanted to be a dirty, overly passionate muckrakeranymore, ala Upton Sinclair or Stephen Crane. Those guys never got paid anyway.

But oddly enough, journalists also got less professional. It was the age of yellow journalism, the news boys forcing the paper into people’s faces, shouting “EXTRA, EXTRA!,” trying to get a penny for the latest scoop. Sensationalism got so bad Hearst and Pulitzer’s subscription war started an actual war. Each was trying to top the other, until all of a sudden one published a story on the sinking of The Maine and America was engaged in our “Splendid Little War”. Needless to say, it was a little much and people were getting tired of it.

These two major changes made for a volatile combination. People were sick of dirty newsies, untrue stories, and muckrakers that brought nothing but trouble. They wanted something new. In came the bright, young, shiny new journalists. And semi-modern journalism, with all its emphasis on being un-bias, was born. And that emphasis stuck around for years, resulting in prestigious papers like The Chicago Tribune and The New York Times and network news shows.

Back in the day, if you didn’t like something the newspaper had to say, there wasn’t much you could do about it.

Now? Not so much.

Let’s say I fervently believe that 9/11 was a hoax, orchestrated by a conspiracy. In this scenario, I’m also cracked, but just go with it. Pre-internet, I’d just have to deal with no one agreeing with me. And possibly go put a tinfoil hat on my head and sit in the corner. I could pout and reject all the traditional news facts, but I couldn’t exactly go find new ones that supported what I thought.

Post-internet, it’s a whole new ball game. The internet is Michael Jordan to the news as basketball. Nothing will ever be the same again.

I have so many choices that can confirm what I already think. Facts, evidence, statistics, whatever, that can back me up. Thousands of other people who believe what I do. I can be told how right I am over and over and over again. No matter how wrong I actually am.

The problem is it isn’t just like that for crackpot theories. It’s everything. We don’t have to listen to each other anymore. If I’m really liberal, I never have to consume media with a conservative slant. Not if I don’t want to. Not even when the conservative media actually has some decent points to make. And when I’m consuming whatever media I want, media that always agrees with me, of course whenever I come across something that doesn’t, it’s wrong. It’s biased. I don’t have to listen to it.

If you don’t like an articles’ opinion, their slant, their bias, then you can just ignore what it has to say and find your own news. I guarantee you’ll like it better because who doesn’t like to hear about how right they are?

And, yes, maybe this has always been a little true, but the internet made it so much worse. It’s all so damn accessible now.

Where does this leave us? Democrats can go in their little corner with their news and sneer at the silly people who are listening to their ridiculous, biased sources. And Republicans can sit in theirs and rant and rave about the liberal media and its awfulness.

And no one has to listen. Ever. And God forbid anyone has to talk to someone who,gasp!, might not have the exact same opinions as they do.

Oh! And we get to condemn any and every journalist we disagree with. Especially, but not limited to, if they commit the cardinal sin of failing to act like an opinion less robot and accidently let a little humanity slip into what they are saying.

It’s a sad state of affairs.

But, don’t worry. I actually have a solution.

There are two parts to stopping this awful cycle. One is something that we, as consumers of news can do. The other is something journalists can do.

We need to stop dismissing news we don’t like based on bias. Suck it up people. Reporters are people too. They do actually have opinions. Weird, right? But, having an opinion does not make bad journalism. Think about it. Can you report the fact of a genocide any less well if you condemn the genocide? The idea of remaining un-biased, of pretending that you don’t have an opinion about something as awful as that is ridiculous. It doesn’t ass anything. It cheapens the story. Lessens it. It takes all the life away from it.

Let journalists breathe life back into their stories. Stop condemning them for being human.

And journalists, don’t be afraid to be human. It’s okay. We understand. In fact, we even know how you can do it and still say professional. Not to mention fabulous.

The scientific process represents the epitome of un-bias. It has a careful vetting process. When one scientists does something it basically doesn’t count unless another one can repeat it.

And, you know what? In this entire, highly professional process no one pretends they don’t have an opinion. In fact, they come right out and say it. It’s called a hypothesis. A scientist says his highly educated opinion of what is going to happen and then proceeds to do everything possible to prove himself wrong. And if he can’t, well then, he must be right.

Back to journalism. State your opinion, and then try everything you can to prove yourself wrong. If you say genocide is awful, do everything you can to prove yourself wrong. I’m guessing (hoping) that you won’t be able to. But, in trying to prove yourself wrong, you’ll have gotten at every angle of the story. And if you are of the opinion that the best way to solve the student debt crisis is to get all the lenders stoned, well you’ll probably be able to prove yourself wrong. And gotten every single fabulous detail of whatever bizarre story you happen to be writing about that.