Broadcast news can be dangerous, not because of what it reports, but because of what it doesn’t. This applies to all forms of media. As time has gone by the media has changed from what I remember as a child watching the news. It was the election of Ronald Reagon, I remember that it was a big deal. In this time we trusted the media to tell us what was going on in the country. Not to mislead us and not to lie to us. To give us the facts and not the opinions of a select few, I didn’t really know any different until I the got internet, and in the mid ninety’s I saw the beginning of the change in media but didn’t know it. So I ask now what has happened? In this essay I will review some facts on media bias and where we are today. I will express my opinion and the opinions of those around me by exposing the facts on media bias and how it affects me and my country.
What is bias? Bias is a term used to describe a tendency or preference towards a particular perspective. The term implies the inability to be impartial or objective. Media bias is a violation of objectivity. There are seven so called “Violations of Media Objectivity”: One is misleading definitions and terminology. How is this used by the media? By using misleading definitions and terminology the media uses terminology and definitions in a way that implies accepted facts, giving a false perception of objectivity. Violation number two is imbalanced reporting. The media frequently misleads the public by presenting only one side of the story. Opinion disguised as news is violation three. Objective reporters don’t use adjectives or adverbs in three stories unless it’s a quotation, leading the opinions of the reporter as false facts. Lack of context violation number four is failin...
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...ors, through their bias have pushed their opinions upon us all in every aspect of life, disrupting our judgments on our future and economy. With this knowledge what will we do with it? It will be a battle to get the truth.
What shall we do about the effects of media bias? I can honestly say I don’t have an answer for this question, and in the turns of justice there is no answer. I have been told that the media can be dangerous, not because of what it reports, but because what it is leaving out. As time has gone by the media has changed. With the editors of big media pushing its opinions on the people, were do we go? I think the best place to get news and info would be the internet. In no way am I saying that the internet is perfect, but overall it’s more raw data. You get to pick and chose what you believe, not the opinion of a few big wigs with unknown motives.
“The old argument that the networks and other ‘media elites’ have a liberal bias is so blatantly true that it’s hardly worth discussing anymore…No we don’t sit around in dark corners and plan strategies on how we’re going to slant the news. We don’t have to. It comes naturally to most reporters.” (Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News) This example is tremendously important in the author’s discussion because it proves that news stories do manipulate people through bias. Popular news networks are viewed by thousands of people every single day, thus making it have a huge impact on the public since they believe what they see. When news reporters present their news segments, it is natural for them to give their insights due to human nature being instinctively biased. “The news media is [sic] only objective if they report something you agree with… Then they’re objective. Otherwise they’re biased if you don’t agree, you know.” (CNN’s American Morning) In this quote, the readers are presented to current panelists agreeing that news consumers have a very hard time separating their own view of the news from the perspective of the news reporters because they are presenting their own opinions throughout their segments. This problem exists once again because of the bias that is contained in media
It is not uncommon to hear people complaining about what they hear on the news. Everyone knows it and the media themselves knows it as well. Some of the most renowned journalists have even covered the the media’s issues in detail. Biased news outlets have flooded everyday news. We find that journalism’s greatest problems lie in the media’s inability for unbiased reporting, the tendency to use the ignorance of their audience to create a story, and their struggles to maintain relevance.
Since the advent of television networks, Americans have relied on local and national newscasts to inform them of the world’s happenings. In the 1950’s there were no other mass informational outlets besides the network news and newspapers. Today we have the internet, which allows independent research, but the majority of Americans still depend on network and cable newscasts for their local, political, and foreign news. With the responsibility and power of informing an entire country, are television newscasts as reliable as most Americans assume them to be? Most Americans don’t consider where their news is coming from or who is producing it. Network and cable news are owned and operated by people and thus are not as objective and unbiased as we would like to think. In light of the war in Iraq and the most recent presidential election, critics of television network administration are voicing their concern for today’s presentation of the news. Increasingly more Americans are demanding a rehabilitation of newscasts, starting with ownership.
Today it seems almost impossible to get a straightforward answer on any major topic from the media. All sources of media have a specific audience that they are intending to hear or view the information that they have prepared, therefore they will cut bits and pieces out so that only the message they are trying to get across will be received. So indeed there is a media bias, and yes it more often than not slants towards the liberal view point, as many reporters and journalists have liberal views themselves.
One of the major problems in the American media today is non-objective reporting which is also known as bias. This has been a trend since the early 1980?s and is very alarming for American citizens who watch the news for truth and honest reporting. Not only has bias been a problem in the broadcast media of ABC, NBC, and CBS, but it has also been a problem in mainstream newspapers such as The New York Times, The Sun, and The Boston Globe. For years, these media outlets have built their reputations on truth and now the trend is to lean left and not tell the whole story. Evidence of this has become very prominent in war coverage and election bias. Bias in the media is a big issue and causes lots of problems throughout the public such as losing trust in a once great source for news, people going elsewhere for information, being ill-informed, and leading to a low voter turnout.
Coverage of events by the mainstream media is politically biased, due to the numerous instances when news networks support one party (either Liberal Democratic or Conservative Republican) and slant the issue in that party’s favor. For example, NBC News reported that the Affordable Care Act was “cheerleading” and viewed the law in a positive manner (Lawrence). As NBC is a major supporter of the Democratic Party, its views are obviously slanted towards liberal and supportive opinions of Obama and his policies. Moreover, this positive perspective of the law only attracts Democrats, and it masks the other perspective involving the detriments of that law, showing presence of propaganda, instilling liberal viewpoints in its unsuspecting audience. In contrast t...
All pieces of information, unless hard fact, are biased. Bias may arise intentionally or not, but either way it is imperative that readers, watchers, and listeners are aware when they come in contact with media bias. Although it is unrealistic for the media to be completely objective in every issue they cover, media bias is a prevalent issue in the world today, and will continue on unless consumers of the media become truly educated about the world and its events. This is demonstrated in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, as all forms of media are controlled by the World State, in favor of the World State and the culture they have created.
Goldberg, Bernard. Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News. Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing Inc., 2002.
Bennett (2011) felt that one of the biggest problems with bias in the American media was its “overwhelming tendency to downplay the big social, economic, or political picture in favor of the human trials, tragedies, and triumphs (177).” Shaiko (2008) alluded to the fact that the American news media is “accountable to the corporate conglomerates” and not “to the readers, listeners, and viewers (205).” Probably the most telling quotation of all can be found in Chapter 10 of The News Media: Communicating Pol...
I found out that majority of the people that participated in this survey felt that the media has had a more negative effect than positive outlook on what’s going on in the world today. 60% of the poll believed that the news broadcast more violence and crime than any other n...
Bias is everywhere in the mainstream media whether it is political, celebrity, or worldwide news. Bias can misinform the public and most of the time leaves the whole story to suit their belief. Bias is when someone is presenting information or talking about a topic but being unfair and not showing the whole side of the story. Media keeps certain information to themselves to not make their belief seem bad but as a good thing. In everyday media there is some form of bias that can be small or big depending on the topic. Of course in today's society it seems that bias is okay and acceptable in the media. However people doing their job are bias and present the information to their beliefs. The public thinks they are getting the truth but media is
The media is often considered to be biased. The reason for this is because they do not act neutral on the things that they report on. They usually give their point of view and tend to warp the information so it’s easily digestible by the average person. This type of “nugget feeding,” can influence the judgment of some one who has no idea what is going on. The media tends to sensationalize the news by making it seem dramatic, and compelling. This hooks the viewer, and keeps them tuned in. The purpose of this is for ratings, and most importantly money. The media has become less professional, and their morality has gone down hill. The editors/gatekeepers decide what information is sent out for the public to see, and hear. This is another way that the news is shaped for our viewing pleasure.
This bias can be seen when the reporter uses different terms that will make the story lean one way more than the other. For example when they uses such phrases as “experts believe,” “observers say,” or “most people believe.” (studentnews.com) People in news stories are like witnesses in trials. If you know whether the defense or the prosecution called a particular expert witness to the stand, you know which way the witness will testify and that’s the way that the story will lean toward. When the media only tells one side of the story, it is clearly the side the reporter believes himself or herself. (Studentnews.com) Biased by story selections is an example of highlighting news stories that coexist with the plan of either the right or the left, while not telling stories that go with the opposing view; publishing a story or study released by a liberal or conservative division but ignoring facts on the same or similar topics released by the opposing group. (studentnews.com) To find out what way the reporter is leaning toward and believes in by the story they choose you will need to know both sides of the story from both point of views. See how much time conservative issues get compared to the time the issues on the liberal agenda, or liberals compared to conservatives.
Media bias is the tendency for the media to represent different people in a particular way based on their own views, the views of their sponsors, and possibly the views of society. Media bias could be blatant, but usually it is subtle. It can be expressed in the content of television shows. It can be expressed in the choices of types of stories that they show on the news. It can be expressed in the language used on shows, and that is written in the newspaper and magazines.
The purpose of journalism is to report a story accurately; simply to tell it like it is. Over the past two decades, with increased tension over political and religious ideologies, the media’s original purpose is being lost. Yes, being well-informed remains an asset in the world today. Our now, globally-focused world will always value knowledge and awareness. With the television, internet, newspaper- all mediums of entertainment- available at the snap of a finger, we have non-stop access to news. One problem with this is the blatant bias of news networks. Every news source has a bias. Viewers typically recognize the platform of the major sources, therefore deterring them from certain networks. When reporters feed viewers the same opinion through different stories, the viewer isn’t getting a balanced intake in terms of overall understanding. In today’s society, viewers are truly at the mercy of what those in authority provide. Think of George Orwell’s 1984 where the all-powerful “Big Brother,” through “The Party” oversees every little piece of information that passes through the telescreen (along with everything that passes by the telescreen on the other end.) The citizens of Oceania are essentially clueless to the truth because they have no access to it. The television: typically a source of entertainment, transformed itself into an instrument for controlling. Yes, the modern technology is