Liberal Bias of Journalism
"Dear Ann: I have a problem. I have two brothers. One brother is in television, the other was put to death in the electric chair for murder. My mother died from insanity when I was three years old. My sisters are prostitutes, and my father sells narcotics to high school students. Recently I met a girl who was just released from a reformatory where she served time for smothering her illegitimate child to death, and I want to marry her. My problem is—if I marry this girl, should I tell her about my brother who is in television?” (Goldberg 117)
Bernard Goldberg’s book, Bias, reveals the truth of journalism, rather than its art. He pinpoints the inevitability and reasoning behind the majority of the media, the nation’s informant, slanting the news in a liberal direction. Clear examples and statistics highlight the condition; denied by the media moguls, already identified by the country.
The problem with the media, as Goldberg points out, is the unintentionally manipulative liberal vernacular employed without fail by the leading news anchors. For instance, “right-wing” and “conservative” are commonplace vocabulary for introducing a politician, activist or public figure not liberally aligned. If balanced by labels like “left-wing” or “liberal”, this would not be an issue. However, even the far-left figures are viewed and portrayed as “middle of the road”. CBS News anchor Dan Rather labeled the New York Times editorial page the same way, despite the constant partiality to letters in favor of abortion, strict gun control and affirmative action; all clearly liberal standpoints.
In reporting national issues, objectivity should be priority number one for the media. Instead, the stories ...
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...y view the world. Given the duration of time over which this has occurred, the lens has morphed into a kaleidoscope, skewing objectivity with deceptive speech. To be fair, if conservatives controlled the networks as the liberals do, a conservative bent would be just as evident.
Webster’s denotes what journalism should be: the style of writing characteristic of material in newspapers and magazines, consisting of direct presentation of facts or occurrences with little attempt at analysis or interpretation. The media connotes what journalism is: a presentation of the news, following its passage through a sieve of obstinate and influential liberal viewpoints, and removing the excess pulp of impartiality from the scene.
Works Cited
Goldberg, Bernard. Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News. Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing Inc., 2002.
In Partisan Journalism, A History of Media Bias in the United States, Jim A. Kuypers steers his audience on a journey from beginning to the end of American journalistic history, putting emphasis on the militaristic ideas of objectivity and partisanship. Kuypers confirm how the American journalistic tradition cultivated as a partisan root and, with only a short time for the objectivity in between, and then go back to those roots in which are today.
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.
In “Reporting the News” by George C. Edwards III, Martin P. Wattenberg, and Robert L. Lineberry, the main idea is how the media determines what to air, where to get said stories that will air, how the media presents the news, and the medias effect on the general public. “Reporting The News” is a very strong and detailed article. The authors’ purpose is to inform the readers of what goes on in the news media. This can be inferred by the authors’ tone. The authors’ overall tone is critical of the topics that are covered. The tone can be determined by the authors’ strong use of transitions, specific examples, and phrases or words that indicate analysis. To summarize, first, the authors’ indicate that the media chooses its stories that will air
A good part of Outfoxed focuses on the company's blurring of news and commentary, how anchormen and reporters are encouraged to repeatedly use catch-phrases like "some people say..." as a means of editorializing within a supposedly objective news story; how graphics, speculation and false information are repeated over-and-over throughout the broadcast day until it appears to become fact, and in doing so spreads like a virus and copied on other networks. A PIPA/Knowledge Networks Poll points to glaring, fundamental misconceptions about the news perpetuated upon Fox viewers, versus information received from widely respected news-gathering organizations like NPR and PBS. Asked, for instance, "Has the U.S. found links between Iraq & al-Qaeda?" only 16% of PBS and NPR viewers answered "yes," but a frightening 67% of Fox viewers believed there had.
Many people believe that liberal media bias is very relevant in this day in age, but really it is just a myth. Conservatives, also known as republicans, tend to forget that most of the American media is influenced heavily by corporate business owners(Schaller 49). Topics such as issues of war and peace, taxes and spending, and government regulation are heavily favorable to the conservatives. A study done by Media Matter for America shows that over sixty percent of U.S. daily newspapers publish conservative journalists rather than liberal(Schaller 49). On the other hand, it is obvious that some hot topics in the news are liberally skewed. Topics such as abortion, gay rights, religion, and gun control are pretty much the only things that have a liberal bias. Some journalists may have liberal views, but do not exploit them like conservatives and certainly their views are not as radical(Schaller
"Liberal Media Bias." [[ - - Carolyn Gargaro's Web Site - Home of a Conservative Female! - - ]]. Web. 10 Nov. 2010.
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...
Objectivity has nearly become nonexistent, and "For years, Americans' political press has been stuck in a fact-free model of neutrality, often covering even the most obvious lies as 'one side' of a dispute," (Introduction). The publishment of these lies and giving them the title of an argument is feigning neutrality, which fools the public into believing all the media is producing. Equal coverage has also been a major issue in media bias. For example, in this past presidential election, “the mainstream media labels a Republican candidate with a slew of phobics to paint him as an awful person, while they seem to put the Democratic candidate on a pedestal or report less harshly” (Ostmann). Determining equal coverage between the two political parties is a touchy subject, but it is apparent that Trump received the brunt of the attacks on his past then his opponent did. Even if it had been the other way around, the media should be held responsible for their devious actions. For the media, it is all about the story, which they will spend hours and hours fine tuning until they are able to fill their likes, views, and subscriptions
The news media rejects the fact that they are biased. They claim that they are the “middle of the road,” and are neutral on the stories that they cover. Publishers also claim that they are the watchdog for the political system, and they make sure that the system is free of any corruption, or wrongdoing. Th...
... is too plain to see to ignore. With the preponderance of information available on the Internet, accurate news reporting is literally seconds away from decoding the spin and explaining the actual facts without as much bias as you will see on cable news. While we still rely on cable news for the visual images and constant analyzation of the news, we have built into our heads which channel is left leaning, right leaning or which one is attempting to straddle the grey area of the politically moderate. Unfortunately to the avid and siloed viewer, theses media channels are the foundation of truth that they need to continue on with their affiliations, political beliefs and moral convictions without worrying about having to change their minds - on anything.
Further, academics such as New York University’s Jay Rosen have criticized impartial journalism, saying it can lead to what he dubs “the view from nowhere”. He describes this as “a bid for trust that advertises the viewlessness of the news producer. Frequently it places the journalist between polarized extremes, and calls that neither-nor position impartial.”
In trying to attract new audiences, news media have begun to transition from reporting to becoming a form of entertainment. With the meteoric rise of social media’s role as a news source, the fight for an increase of diversity in the media, and the ever-growing desire of immediate content, the future of responsible journalism is more important than ever. Ask yourself, why do I think the way I do? Where do my political views originate? How do I prove them? Most likely, it is due to the biased portrayal of issues in the media and the politicization that accompanies what we consume. Now, compare your views to your preferred news reporting entity. More than likely, they are the same.
The main thesis in in Bennett, Lawrence, and Livingston (2006) is the sense that journalist using framing techniques are limited in providing readers with objectivity views. In the way they are force to behave this way thru the government to not shed the facts to be guard dogs. The article states the media fails in being partiality in providing the audience with an objectivity view of news frames. That this leads to the fact that journalists are not able to be independent when writing. Thus the white house holds more of the control of what is written when sent to the masses. Journalists are being guard dogs in the sense that they are limited in the information given and have the information censored. Compared to the journalist in being objective and being watchdogs for the masses.
According to Patterson & McNair (1998), “objectivity has been called the defining norm of modern journalism and the key legitimating professional ethics of liberal journalism.” The term objectivity itself means getting the two sides of the story and being unbiased with whatever information that one has. And in order to full discuss about the idea of journalism neutrality, we first need to tackle on the critiques on the nonpartisanship of journalism.