Week 2 Is there Media Bias?

This comment is based on two articles, one at the "Media Research Center" ( a conservative group) which I will abbreviate MRC, http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/biasbasics1.asp, and the other at "What Liberal Media?" ( a liberal group) which I will abbreviate WLM http://www.whatliberalmedia.com/ , both of which deal with the topic "is there bias in the media?"

Is there media bias? Almost everyone ( other than many people in the media) will say that they believe the media is biased, that is almost a given by this point in time. The majority of people in the media, however, will unfailingly proclaim their scrupulous even handed treatment of issues they report on. They either will not, or can not, admit the obvious, that all of us come to issues with our own biases, which we must always be aware may, and probably do, color our perception of what is news and how to express what we want to say about the news. The question should not be" is the media biased?", but rather "how is the media biased and what is the effect of any bias on their reporting of news?".

After examining the WLM site ( which consists mostly of the comments from the book they are trying to sell) I came away with the impression that the writer, Eric Altman, sincerely believes that the media has a decidedly right tilt. He waxes on and on, through a pdf of 13 pages, about how many errors he found in the sayings of outspoken conservative luminaries, most of which seem to be more of the nit picking type of errors than substantive ones. He dances around the premise of media bias by doing the journalist's verbal equivalent of a drive by shooting, he tosses in a comment about the person he quotes, usually of a personal or unsubstantiated nature, and then speeds off to something else leaving me wondering what happened and is there anything there or is it just sniping? Throughout his lengthy writing, he repeats the mantra of a conservative bias to the news, but offered no real evidence of any such thing. There is a whole lot of opinon here, but not many concrete facts for the question he purports to address, is the media biased? He believes the media is biased to the right, but offers no concrete proof or even examples, of why he should be believed.

I also examined the MRC site, which I must confess was not only much more concise, it was easier to find what they believed. On the home page they stated their premises about why they believe the media has a liberal lean, and each statement had links to a complete article on that particular topic. They did not go as far into the personal attacks as did Mr. Altman, confining themselves to advancing a reason why they believed the media was biased to the liberal side, and then cited actual quotes or statistics to support their position.

In short, my own thoughts on the subject are that the media is not balanced, and worse yet, for the most part they either do not see it, or will not admit it. Additionally, I think there is sufficient reason to suspect that the media generally biases the news in favor of liberal views. Not so much because of a vast conspiracy, but because they are overwhelmingly liberal themselves. If one is coming from the viewpoint that your views are the only possible ones a thinking person can have, it becomes more difficult to present the views of the other side in a neutral fashion. A bias may be seen in what they decide is newsworthy, how much time is given to a piece, and proceeds forth from there. Even the vocabulary selected for a piece may, deliberately or not, subtly shade the perception the person reading or watching the piece receives. One of the items that was very interesting on the MRC site was a piece about how an overwhelming number of journalists consulted identified themselves as Democrat or liberal. This could indicate that conservative views may indeed not be receiving a balanced, fair share of coverage. The very fact that so many people have given up on getting their news from the traditional "big media" print and network outlets should tell us something about the perception the public has about the quality of the news being offered.

There is indeed media bias, and as long as we are all accepting of the fact that none of us is unbiased and that our biases will inevitably influence our thoughts and reporting, then there is no great problem, we just must ascertain that there are people doing the reporting from both major viewpoints. The real problem is when we are so arrogant that we are blinded by our own biases into thinking that we have none.