Are you tired of media bias and fake news?
I’m launching News Bling to expose it
Note: Jump down to the ‘My Goal’ section if you just want to know more about News Bling and couldn’t care less about why I’m doing this. I know — we all have negative free time in our day.
Background
Hi, my name is Nupur. I’m obsessed with media. All forms of it. Books, music, film, TV, radio, etc. All have played an immense role in the development of modern man. As technology has made communication more efficient, media’s impact on society has continuously grown. For example, a group of hackers could skew a foreign election. A national newspaper could expose widespread corruption. Movie stars could use their fame to encourage action. The impact of technology and media is overwhelming.
The impact is strong because information is valuable. The problem is information is pervasive and can be used as a weapon. It can be withheld (Equifax), it can be shared with a wrongdoer (espionage), it can be manipulated to mean something else (propaganda).
Information has been abused by society since the dawn of time. The most basic form of information abuse is a lie. One of the most well known early examples is the story of the Trojan horse. More recent examples include Bernie Madoff or Watergate. There is a fine line between lying and other forms of information abuse. The point is information can be used maliciously to varying degrees.
Society developed journalism to safeguard information and prevent abuse. Sharing true information freely is a hallmark of democratic society — hence freedom of the press. The role of the press is to inform society without biases. Unfortunately, personal agendas combined with economic incentives have driven news organizations towards varying degrees of biased reporting.
24 Hour News Cycles
As a millennial, I’ve witnessed the news become partisan. Fox News takes a lot of the blame for starting the partisan news trend. However, it is unfair to point fingers in only one direction. We have to dig deeper to discover the reason for this trend.
In 1980, CNN was an innovative idea when it became the first 24 hour cable news network. To retain audiences and fill a 24 hour block, CNN had to report in a fast-paced style of breaking news and provide updates over time. Critics say this increased competition for audience attention and led to a decline in journalistic standards. Sensationalism and opinion were easier to produce than in-depth reporting on topics that mattered.
In 1996, when Fox News launched, it quickly found an audience by catering to conservatives. They focused on stories that appealed to their audience. This was a business after all, so they had to give the people what they wanted! Ultimately, Fox News became dominant in TV news ratings and their influence ballooned. The formula was simple: tell the people what they want to hear, the audience will keep coming back and the dollars will follow.
The success of Fox News left competitors like CNN and MSNBC in the dust. As a result, these players have copied the formula, with the exception of catering to a liberal audience. Fox News may have been the wedge in partisan reporting, but all players in the market helped perpetuate the split.
The White Space
Partisan reporting has led to a divide in the mainstream press. Most major news organizations are now perceived to fall left or right of center. I emphasize perceived because in the current political climate, the general public cannot agree on which organizations are unbiased. Partisan groups are only interested in engaging in echo chambers of their own opinions.
As a result, I believe there is a white space to develop an unbiased/non-partisan news organization trusted by the public, especially millennials. By the way, the median age of a major cable TV news viewer is 60+… Well-funded startup news organizations are appearing to fill this gap left by the incumbents. However, most are perceived as left leaning (Huffington Post, Vox, Vice News, etc).
The 2016 U.S. presidential election was an eye opener for many. Most of the nation thought this election would be a landslide victory for Hillary Clinton. That’s what everyone was constantly told! Major outlets across cable TV news, podcasts, websites, pollsters, etc hammered home the point that Donald Trump had a slim chance. Was this the media’s bias, wishful thinking or misinformation? Were the polls wrong? All of the above? Who knows. This failure perpetuated the narrative among conservatives that most of the news media has a liberal bias and further drove partisanship and distrust.
My Goal
The main goal is simple:
I’m launching News Bling to ensure information is used to inform citizens rather than dictate.
I want people to see and understand how their news is being spun. By exposing bias and cutting out the spin, citizens can become more engaged and accurately interpret what’s happening in the world.
Additional goals include:
· Become a trusted news source
· Create a strong community
· Engage millennials in news
What Exactly is News Bling?
In short, a daily news aggregator. I’m collecting the top headlines from major news outlets and putting them side-by-side. Most consumers of news are only getting one side of the story. Putting headlines by Fox News, CNN, Politico, Breitbart, etc next to each other for the same story will help burst our respective bubbles and facilitate cross-pollination of ideas. I will also be including a little analysis on each top story to expose the spin and bias you read in the headlines. Some outlets will spin a story left while others right. Below is a quick example of what you will find.
On Charlottesville Unite the Right rally and protests (8/15/17):
ABC News: Lawmakers slam Trump for laying ‘blame on both sides’ in Charlottesville rally
Fox News: Trump ‘entirely correct’ to blame both sides for Charlottesville violence, White House says
Both articles cover the same topic but each side has its own bias, which is apparent in the headlines! ABC News wants the reader to focus on the fact that Trump is getting heat from his peers for his comments. Fox News chooses to omit the fact that congressional leaders have spoken out against his comments and instead focuses on the White House’s statement supporting POTUS.
The initial topic focus will be politics, media, tech, business, and trending social commentary, though inherently most news bias tends to be politically driven in nature.
The Vision
Step 1
The launch version of this project (think MVP for the tech folks) will be a daily newsletter. The same information will also be published on the News Bling publication on Medium. Eventually, I will migrate from Medium over to a website. I’m using Medium because it is a good platform and community for discussion in the comments section. I hope to create a dialogue around the headlines we read and develop a community with active discussion on the top news stories. All news sites already have comment sections, but as we all know, they are fueled by hate for the opposition and allow for trolls to hide behind usernames. I aim to create a discussion platform for news to the likes of Quora.com, where readers can have different opinions in an open dialogue.
Step 2
Next step will be to work on and release a tech-enabled product that automatically exposes the news bias across the internet. Super excited about this…but hush hush for now…
Step 3
The longer term vision is to focus on developing a media brand that expands well beyond this. The mission to disseminate unbiased information will remain the same. The next step would be to create original informative content that appeals to millennials. Initially, this will be articles driven by original research and short form audio commentary exposing media bias. Eventually we will push into high quality short form video with distribution via social media. So much room for growth and opportunities!!! I’ll spare you the words and keep it in my head for now…
Get Involved/Help Me
I’ve realized I’m not the only one digging deep into the comment sections on sites like Breitbart (far right) or Mother Jones (far left). If you like what you’ve read and want to learn more, please contact me. If you know anyone who would be interested (younger or older), please forward this to them.
I’m working to build a team of individuals interested in News Bling’s mission. First and foremost I need individuals interested in the editorial side of this project, helping to aggregate the best stories and analyzing headlines.
Thanks for reading. PLEASE SIGN UP for the newsletter and comment below with your thoughts, suggestions, complaints, etc.
Nupur Patel
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“The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.”
— U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971)
