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is the media really biased? How you answer usually depends upon your political, societal, economic, religious, and philosophical outlook. I believe that the media is biased towards news agencies located in New York City and Washington DC. Evidence of this is how much local newspaper/broadcast news stories are just syndicated stories from the New York Times, Washington Post and national networks. News generated from news agencies in those two cities is typically liberal and oriented towards issues that affect those cities. How do newspaper/tv/radio conglomerates bias the news? Is this good or is this bad? In my opinion, the problem with the media is not bias, but the pretense of objectivity. ALL people are biased, and always will be, and the fact that news agencies attempt to cover up that fact and pretend that they are reporting objectively makes them less likely to see their biases, and makes consumers less likely to look for it. --LDC I agree wholeheartedly. And I find the pretense pernicious. AyeSpy There is admiting you have a bias, though, and there is out-and-out propaganda. In Calgary we have one of the worst papers to ever exist, essentially a form letter for one of the political parties. Do I say this because they tend to report on their achievements first, or praise them over their competitors? No. I say this because when a tornado hit the province they ran a column about what their favored candidate thought of the incident and, surprise surprise, he is in favor of fewer tornadoes. That hardly even counts as an editorial. I am trying to write a real encyclopedia article on Media bias. Please help me. The goal is to present the issue in an unbiased manner. :-) I strongly disagree with the idea that lack of bias is impossible. Difficult, perhaps, but not impossible. There is a certain amount of cynicism in the view that since everyone is biased (allegedly), the most important thing is to just admit it and get on with it. I don't agree. It is very possible to put aside our own views, in order to present a balanced presentation of all views. Will it ever be perfect? Perhaps not. But if it is not possible at all then perhaps the fault is with your conception of what a lack of bias actually is. Just to throw in my two cents' worth (maybe less): I agree with the position above that all media is biased, and that the real problem is not the bias but recognizing its existence. If you're looking to write an article on it, you might look into finding the documentaries Fear and Favor in the Newsroom (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0116286 ), which offers specific and overt examples of censorship, as well as Spin (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0114512), which consists of outtakes from satellite feeds, made during sound checks and commercials. Spin includes various pundits' racist jokes, homophobic comments, and casual dismissals of genocide, as well as Larry King's assertion to Bill Clinton in 1992 that he should talk to Ted Turner because Turner likes him and "would, ah, *serve* you, if you know what i mean." if you're brave of heart, you might try to read Manufacturing consent, which is dense and exhaustively documented, and impenetrable even to most radicals (I certainly never finished it). A virtual beer to you if you can. :-D --Koyaanis Qatsi You can download Spin online at http://www.phdepot.com/ |
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