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The Myth of Unbiased Media
The journalist Megyn Kelly wears her political bias on her sleeve, unlike most people in media (and in life) who fail to acknowledge their own biases
When former Fox New anchor Megyn Kelly attended a rally for presidential candidate Donald Trump, and formally endorsed him, her public display of bias crossed a supposedly sacrosanct line in journalism. In a recent interview in the New York Times Magazine, Kelly made no apologies. “There’s no question that I owned my bias on Trump and crossed a line that I had never crossed before,” she said. “Now everyone has zero doubt about where I stand, and they can filter everything I say through the appropriate lens.”
As a trained journalist with roots in newspapers going back three decades and including time as a media company executive, I might be expected to bristle at such hubristic defiance of journalistic norms, especially in an era of crumbling trust in media and the collapse of traditional journalism. Instead, I’m glad she blatantly exposed her bias. Because here’s a dirty little secret:
The notion that journalists are unbiased is hogwash, and always has been. Nobody is unbiased. Humans are incapable of being unbiased.
