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The Six Forms of Media Bias

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
In his New York Times email today, David Leonhardt identified six forms or kinds of media bias. To quote:
  • Centrist bias. In her column, [Margarete] Sullivan [of the Washington Post] inveighs against the bias toward political centrism and notes that it often crowds out thought-provoking political views on both the left and right. She also calls out a related problem, bothsidesism: blaming the parties equally, even when they don't deserve equal blame. Brian Fallon, the Democratic strategist, recently had a pointed description of bothsidesism. He described it as a “a performative effort to triangulate so as to present the journalist as more deserving of the public’s trust than their elected leaders. It’s a political act, and shows just as much bias as picking a side.”
  • Affluent bias. The media isn't just biased toward the center. It often confuses the center with views that are actually those of the affluent. My newsletter on Tuesday— about Howard Schultz — made the fuller version of the argument. Why does this bias exist? National journalists, the ones who often set the agenda, spend a fair amount of time around wealthy people, and national journalists themselves tend to be more affluent than most Americans. A classic example: At a 2008 Democratic primary debate, a then-anchor at ABC News, Charlie Gibson, suggested that a middle class family in New Hampshire might make $200,000 a year. The audience laughed.
  • Bias for the new. Journalists often confuse newness with importance. The problem lurks in the product’s name: “News.” Too often, we emphasize relatively trivial stories — like candidates taking verbal swipes at each other — over more important ones, like the candidates’ tax policy, as New York University’s Jay Rosen has argued. In the 2016 presidential debates, for instance, the moderators almost completely ignored climate change.
  • The same biases that afflict society. From sexism in political reporting (“likability”) to racism in crime coverage (the “crack baby” stereotype), the media often suffers from the same biases that other Americans do. But we could certainly be doing more to fight back. Female and nonwhite voices remain underrepresented at major publications.
  • Liberal bias. Yes, it’s real. Most mainstream journalists do lean left. Political reporters and Washington reporters are usually professional enough to keep these views from affecting their coverage. Instead, they’re more likely to suffer from bothsidesism, even when a both-sides story isn’t the most accurate one. The coverage of Hillary Clinton’s emails, to take one example, certainly didn’t suffer from liberal bias. But on issue-based coverage, liberal bias exists. Education reform — the media’s frequent hostility toward charter schools — is one example. My colleague Ross Douthat makes his case about liberal bias on this week’s episode of “The Argument” podcast. As you will hear, I partly agreed with him and partly pushed back. Michelle Goldberg disagreed with him more fully. It was a good debate.
  • Conservative bias. It’s real, too. Fox News and talk radio are huge, influential parts of the media. They skew hard right, and they often present their readers with misleading or outright false information, be it “birtherism” or conspiracy theories. Much of the media — local and national, news reporters and opinion columnists — tries hard to tell stories accurately and corrects itself when it errs. Fox and a lot of talk radio do not. And I’ll take a fallible, self-reflective media, even with all of the biases I’ve listed here, over a media that is more akin to propaganda.
Of the six kinds, the one I think is least recognized is centrism -- or "bothsidesism". Lots of people seem to falsely reason that the middle ground is the most balanced, objective, fair, and reasonable ground -- when often it is not. Often the middle ground is heavily biased, skewed, inaccurate, and misleading. To assert without evidence that the middle ground is balanced, objective, etc is often done as a ploy by journalists and newscasters in order to pretend to moral and/or intellectual superiority.

Questions? Comments?
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
The affluent bias is an interesting one. It perpetuates what we are supposed to do, who we should be, and what we should strive for, but it's perpetuating the values of the bourgeoisie in order to keep the masses chasing the carrot in order to keep the affluent up there and everybody else down here.
 

dfnj

Well-Known Member
In reference to "fair and balanced" I heard O'Reilly say, "I have liberals on my show all the time!" My immediately thought was, "Yeah, when you are that far to the right everyone is a liberal!"
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
In reference to "fair and balanced" I heard O'Reilly say, "I have liberals on my show all the time!" My immediately thought was, "Yeah, when you are that far to the right everyone is a liberal!"
I've no idea what his show is like, other than loud & rude.
But I heard Terry Gross (Fresh Air on NPR) interview him.
I don't recall the details, but he wasn't all that conservative.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
I've no idea what his show is like, other than loud & rude.
But I heard Terry Gross (Fresh Air on NPR) interview him.
I don't recall the details, but he wasn't all that conservative.
His show was "trollish lite." He's no explosive firebrand like Coulter, but his actual views aren't going to rock too many boats.
The best moment on O'Reilly's show was when Marilyn Manson was on it, and despite his best efforts O'Reilly found it impossible to provoke Manson into giving the type of response O'Reilly would want to "prove his points" about Manson's character. Manson didn't fall for it, he didn't play into it, and O'Reilly was getting frustrated as he was trying to slam buttons to get his desired response to make him look like such an evil demonic influence on the kiddies.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
His show was "trollish lite." He's no explosive firebrand like Coulter, but his actual views aren't going to rock too many boats.
The best moment on O'Reilly's show was when Marilyn Manson was on it, and despite his best efforts O'Reilly found it impossible to provoke Manson into giving the type of response O'Reilly would want to "prove his points" about Manson's character. Manson didn't fall for it, he didn't play into it, and O'Reilly was getting frustrated as he was trying to slam buttons to get his desired response to make him look like such an evil demonic influence on the kiddies.
Good for this Manson guy.
(I've heard of'm, but don't know'm.)
 
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