This blog is for students from Lawrence Free State High School in Lawrence, KS and students from Mildenhall College of Technology in Mildenhall, England.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
American Current Event: Biased Media Coverage
Post questions, comments and observations about biased media coverage under the comments seciton.
This is a really good example of biases in the UK. The Sun is like the biggest selling paper in the UK and during the 2010 election completely behind David Cameron (Conservative)
I was wondering if there has ever been media without bias, that could be used as an example to the media today. I know in other history classes, we analyze the bias that various writers had when they were recording events. Is it possible that media/writings without personal bias is just impossible to achieve?
I agree with Claire. I think it is virtually impossible to have media without bias. It seem like media is always trying to sway people one way or another, or get them to buy something. It is always biased towards something.
Bias is unavoidable but there has still been a trend toward blatantly biased media sources recently. It's almost impossible to find a news station on TV without a political bias, and this was not the case 25 years ago. Some people argue that with the creation of technology recently which allows video and audio footage and high quality photographs of events being reported, media is becoming less biased. I disagree with this. Even when a person is recording the event happening, there is still a person with an opinion behind that video or still camera. They choose the angle, what they record, and what photographs or clips are actually shown to the public. This is all done by humans and all humans have biased opinions.
I disagree. I think it would be not be hard at all for us to have unbiased media. Why can't we have a news program that just presents the facts? The problem is that we introduce 'political commentators' that are extremely biased and they are the face of these news programs such as FOX news and MSNBC. It isn't that we can't have unbiased news, it is that we don't WANT unbiased new. Biased news is more entertaining. We like watching people that we tend to agree with.
Choosing which facts you present could introduce bias, though. If you are a primary source, then when you witness something happen, you are viewing it keeping your opinions in mind. If you aren't a primary source, you are getting your facts from a secondary, which could potentially already be biased.
Personally, I think the most important part of eliminating media bias is personal interpretation. Many people in the United States take the news face value and do not consider the possibilty of exaggeration or error. While it may take more work, the only way to create a truly unbiased media source is to create it for yourself by cross referencing media sources.
I agree with Calvert. The only real way to combat media bias is by knowing the facts of the issue. This can be made difficult by all of the bias in news today, but certain news sources are unbiased, and will provide a reliable source of information, even though they're not as popular as those sources that are biased.
I feel like media without bias would be somewhat boring. It would be straight facts which yes can be helpful but people watch the news A to be entertained and B to hear the news. There are different stations with different bias's but in reality everyone has an opinion so being biased is natural... unless you are a robot, but thats just my biased opinion
Media bias is just another one of humanity's natural shortcomings. Although we can try our best to tell a story and present facts fairly, the fact that we are the ones telling the story throws in our personal beliefs and influences, however slight they may be. This doesn't even have to apply to strictly media because in everyday conversation we present statements with varying degrees of bias. The tone of our voice and our various expressions slant the view no matter how hard we try. This happens just as much in the media since robots do not usually write articles or host a news show. Steve thinks they should, however.
I don't think bias news in neccessarily a bad thing. If we listen to all different types of news then eventually we get the full story of both sides. I personally am not effected by what other people's opinions are. I come up with my own and I don't try to persuade other people to follow me. We are never going to have the power to change media. So we should just deal with it.
First of all, thank you Felix. And while I agree that media without bias would be fairly boring, it would be more reliable as well as helpful. You would be able to trust whatever media outlet to not skew the story so that all would be approximately the same. This is unrealistic though. Bias will always be present as long as robots are not running our media. And they will not for quite a while.
I agree with Calvert. Media will always be biased, we just can't fall into the traps networks set for us. I try to see issues from an unbiased standpoint, while using my common sense. People shouldn't just watch FOX news or MSNBC alone, because both are biased and spin the news however they want to. Rather, I think that if you are going to watch a "biased" network, it's a good idea to watch both extremes, and form your opinion somewhere in the middle. It's all about how we interpret what the media presents to us.
I agree with jackie. i know what i beleive and you can be biased however you want but i dont have to agree with you. and media bias is unavoidable so all we can do is just try and get everyside of the story, not just the side that we support. and robots should write news articles
Yeah media! Personally, I think we should all watch the Daily Show. It is pretty great. Also, he is not a racist. It may be biased like all media, but that is unavoidable!
I think Calvert has it right. The only way to eliminate bias is to understand where there is bias. Then, knowing that bias will always be present in whatever news source we select to follow, all we have to do is read the news we like to read while keeping in mind the bias present within it. We have to be smart about it. Unfortunately, most people are not.
I agree with Felix (and possibly Steve, depending on if the robots would be good writers or not). I feel that portraying bias today is something that many people do without even realizing it. The decision of word choice for even the most insignificant word can be seen as showing bias in an article or piece. No matter what people write, it can be seen as bias and people have to be very careful when making decisions about what they state. Unfortunately, people just don't seem to have the time be careful due to deadlines and scheduling, and being biased is not as important to editors as it should be.
I see a potential issue here, in that I don't think this discussion is necessarily as unbiased as it may appear. It's a fine thing to say that media should be unbiased, but how many of us actually balance our news-watching? Even if we do that, how many of us watch the news through a neutral lens? I often find myself emphasizing what I find important in a story and glossing over details that smudge my viewpoint.
I'm not inclined to believe that we can't know all the necessary facts with the media we have (if we couldn't, would we even think to have this conversation?). I think there is a responsibility on the part of the viewer, not only to know the facts, but to check their own bias when learning them.
I think we might give the media a little too much credit when it comes to our own biases; I guess that may just be a bias we hold.
I think that it's impossible for people to be unbiased about anything. People will always have any opinion on anything that they learn about. No one can be completely objective, but it would be great if somepeople *cough* FOX NEWS *cough* could not be so blatantly obvious with their opinions and instead just report the facts about the news.
I agree with everyone in that all news stories are going to be biased in some way, and the best thing we can do is to look past it. It would be quite boring without bias, and like Jackie said, if you watch and read all sorts of news stories, you'll eventually begin to make up your own opinions.
This is a really good example of biases in the UK.
ReplyDeleteThe Sun is like the biggest selling paper in the UK and during the 2010 election completely behind David Cameron (Conservative)
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/election2010/
I was wondering if there has ever been media without bias, that could be used as an example to the media today. I know in other history classes, we analyze the bias that various writers had when they were recording events. Is it possible that media/writings without personal bias is just impossible to achieve?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Claire. I think it is virtually impossible to have media without bias. It seem like media is always trying to sway people one way or another, or get them to buy something. It is always biased towards something.
ReplyDeleteBias is unavoidable but there has still been a trend toward blatantly biased media sources recently. It's almost impossible to find a news station on TV without a political bias, and this was not the case 25 years ago. Some people argue that with the creation of technology recently which allows video and audio footage and high quality photographs of events being reported, media is becoming less biased. I disagree with this. Even when a person is recording the event happening, there is still a person with an opinion behind that video or still camera. They choose the angle, what they record, and what photographs or clips are actually shown to the public. This is all done by humans and all humans have biased opinions.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of that. In England we are all biased towards something and it is often really hard to hold back our biased opinions when we need to.
ReplyDeleteI disagree. I think it would be not be hard at all for us to have unbiased media. Why can't we have a news program that just presents the facts? The problem is that we introduce 'political commentators' that are extremely biased and they are the face of these news programs such as FOX news and MSNBC. It isn't that we can't have unbiased news, it is that we don't WANT unbiased new. Biased news is more entertaining. We like watching people that we tend to agree with.
ReplyDeleteChoosing which facts you present could introduce bias, though. If you are a primary source, then when you witness something happen, you are viewing it keeping your opinions in mind. If you aren't a primary source, you are getting your facts from a secondary, which could potentially already be biased.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think the most important part of eliminating media bias is personal interpretation. Many people in the United States take the news face value and do not consider the possibilty of exaggeration or error. While it may take more work, the only way to create a truly unbiased media source is to create it for yourself by cross referencing media sources.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Calvert. The only real way to combat media bias is by knowing the facts of the issue. This can be made difficult by all of the bias in news today, but certain news sources are unbiased, and will provide a reliable source of information, even though they're not as popular as those sources that are biased.
ReplyDeleteI feel like media without bias would be somewhat boring. It would be straight facts which yes can be helpful but people watch the news A to be entertained and B to hear the news. There are different stations with different bias's but in reality everyone has an opinion so being biased is natural... unless you are a robot, but thats just my biased opinion
ReplyDeleteMedia bias is just another one of humanity's natural shortcomings. Although we can try our best to tell a story and present facts fairly, the fact that we are the ones telling the story throws in our personal beliefs and influences, however slight they may be. This doesn't even have to apply to strictly media because in everyday conversation we present statements with varying degrees of bias. The tone of our voice and our various expressions slant the view no matter how hard we try. This happens just as much in the media since robots do not usually write articles or host a news show. Steve thinks they should, however.
ReplyDeleteI don't think bias news in neccessarily a bad thing. If we listen to all different types of news then eventually we get the full story of both sides. I personally am not effected by what other people's opinions are. I come up with my own and I don't try to persuade other people to follow me. We are never going to have the power to change media. So we should just deal with it.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thank you Felix. And while I agree that media without bias would be fairly boring, it would be more reliable as well as helpful. You would be able to trust whatever media outlet to not skew the story so that all would be approximately the same. This is unrealistic though. Bias will always be present as long as robots are not running our media. And they will not for quite a while.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Calvert. Media will always be biased, we just can't fall into the traps networks set for us. I try to see issues from an unbiased standpoint, while using my common sense. People shouldn't just watch FOX news or MSNBC alone, because both are biased and spin the news however they want to. Rather, I think that if you are going to watch a "biased" network, it's a good idea to watch both extremes, and form your opinion somewhere in the middle. It's all about how we interpret what the media presents to us.
ReplyDeleteI agree with jackie. i know what i beleive and you can be biased however you want but i dont have to agree with you. and media bias is unavoidable so all we can do is just try and get everyside of the story, not just the side that we support. and robots should write news articles
ReplyDeleteYeah media! Personally, I think we should all watch the Daily Show. It is pretty great. Also, he is not a racist. It may be biased like all media, but that is unavoidable!
ReplyDeleteI think Calvert has it right. The only way to eliminate bias is to understand where there is bias. Then, knowing that bias will always be present in whatever news source we select to follow, all we have to do is read the news we like to read while keeping in mind the bias present within it. We have to be smart about it. Unfortunately, most people are not.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Felix (and possibly Steve, depending on if the robots would be good writers or not). I feel that portraying bias today is something that many people do without even realizing it. The decision of word choice for even the most insignificant word can be seen as showing bias in an article or piece. No matter what people write, it can be seen as bias and people have to be very careful when making decisions about what they state. Unfortunately, people just don't seem to have the time be careful due to deadlines and scheduling, and being biased is not as important to editors as it should be.
ReplyDeleteI see a potential issue here, in that I don't think this discussion is necessarily as unbiased as it may appear. It's a fine thing to say that media should be unbiased, but how many of us actually balance our news-watching? Even if we do that, how many of us watch the news through a neutral lens? I often find myself emphasizing what I find important in a story and glossing over details that smudge my viewpoint.
ReplyDeleteI'm not inclined to believe that we can't know all the necessary facts with the media we have (if we couldn't, would we even think to have this conversation?). I think there is a responsibility on the part of the viewer, not only to know the facts, but to check their own bias when learning them.
I think we might give the media a little too much credit when it comes to our own biases; I guess that may just be a bias we hold.
I think that it's impossible for people to be unbiased about anything. People will always have any opinion on anything that they learn about. No one can be completely objective, but it would be great if somepeople *cough* FOX NEWS *cough* could not be so blatantly obvious with their opinions and instead just report the facts about the news.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone in that all news stories are going to be biased in some way, and the best thing we can do is to look past it. It would be quite boring without bias, and like Jackie said, if you watch and read all sorts of news stories, you'll eventually begin to make up your own opinions.
ReplyDelete