Media Biases Are Easy To Spot If You Look For Them
Media biases are everywhere. And they’re easy to detect, especially in political and sports reporting.
The biases of political television news commentators are easy for a viewer to recognize, especially those on cable. All they have to do is compare what commentators on network A says compared to that of commentators on networks B and C for a viewer to determine if they are listening to a straight news or propaganda broadcast. In addition, most of the cable talent makes no secret of their biases.
Pundits in print publications, AKA as opinion columnists, also make no bones about their biases. But some, like Peggy Noonan, who pens for the Wall Street Journal, attempts to be fairer minded than most of her other colleagues at the paper.
In her column that appeared in the September 9-10 edition, Ms. Noonan wrote, “Biden’s Fibs Are a 20th-Century Throwback.” No explanation on my part about the content of the column is necessary. The headline tells it all.
Ms. Noonan is an admitted center-right opinionist who has been critical of former President Donald Trump for a few years. Compared to the writings of other WSJ columnists, Ms. Noonan’s columns can be considered center left (most of the time).
But her column about Mr. Biden’s fibs unveiled her true biases. And what she wrote gave me the idea for this essay.
In her column, when writing about the president’s lies since he began his political career, Ms. Noonan wrote, in part, "Mr. Biden became a pol before everything was on tape, so you could make up pretty much anything
and not get caught. This was true of others in his political generation. Hillary Clinton got in trouble in 2008 for claiming she’d come under fire in a diplomatic visit to Bosnia. She didn’t; there was videotape. But she started out before videotape was accessible and ubiquitous.”
Fair enough, up to a point. But while writing about the two Democrats fibs, Ms. Noonan conveniently forgot to mention the lies told by a person she worked for -- former President Ronald Reagan.
She didn’t mention Mr. Reagan’s fib about his military service, or on other topics, when he told stories about personally witnessing the liberation of European concentration camps during World War II.
A 2015 article in Salon detailed the lies that Mr. Reagan told and said, “But Reagan's fabrications also included whoppers about conflict zones reminiscent of those put forth by Williams and Clinton. During Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's November 1983 visit to the U.S., Reagan told Shamir that during his service in the U.S. Army film corps, he and fellow members of his unit personally shot footage of the Nazis' concentration camps as they were liberated. Reagan would tell this story again to others, including Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal. But Reagan was never present at the camps' liberation. Instead, he spent the war in Culver City, California, where he processed footage from the liberation of the camps.”
(Editors Note: Williams refers to Brian Williams, then with NBC.)
Could the fact that Ms. Noonan was a primary speechwriter and Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan from 1984 to 1986 be the reason that she didn’t include the Reagan fabrications in her column? In Ms. Noonan’s case only readers who are interested in political history might have remembered or known about the Regan omissions. Nevertheless, Ms. Noonan’s column about Mr. Biden’s fibs, which also included the ones by Ms. Clinton and Mr. Williams, without mentioning those told by her former boss in the White House, is a prime example of dreadful journalism. It is worse than media bias, which is often acknowledged by the author or commentators. It is selective censorship, a journalistic “no, no” for truthful reporters.
Selective reporting has always been a facet of news reporting. In many cases it doesn't matter. A publication that doesn’t cover a concert or another entertainment event may irritate some readers. Other readers might be upset because of changes in reporting regarding television happenings and sports events, as the New York Times has done in recent years. But so what? Only a limited number of people will be affected.
Not so when publications report on political events that can affect millions of people and influence the way they vote. Below are a few ways that readers can tell if the news sources of their choice are playing politics with the facts.
The easiest way to play media bias detective is to pay attention to story selection, content and placement of the articles. This applies only to news sections of newspapers, not to opinion or editorial writers who are paid to write biased articles.
Are the articles about one political party more frequently published than that of another party?
Are the favorable articles of one political party much longer than the favorable ones of another party?
Are the favorable articles about one political party published in a location that the readers can’t miss, when the favorable articles about the other party are in a less desirable section of the newspaper?
Are the quotes in stories about one political party positive, while quotes in an article about another party are negative?
And, of course, the headlines of articles can expose biases. Are the headlines written in a positive manner for one political party, while negative aspects of an article are featured about the other party?
Photo selection can also determine biases:
Are photos of one political party always on page one or in another highly- read section of a newspaper, while photos of the other party are in sections that are less frequently read.
Do the photos of one party show candidates in a happy or constructive setting in contrast to the dour photos of the other party’s candidates?
Paying attention to the above clues for only a week or so will make it evident to readers if the news section of a newspaper is reporting the happenings in a factual manner or if the articles are being slanted to favor the publication’s editorial positions.
Even on the none cable TV news programs biases are easy to spot. While important “hard news” stories are covered by all the networks, careful watching can unveil the biases of the decision makers.
Are positive stories regarding one political party aired more frequently than those of the opposition?
Do positive stories about one side receive more time than positive ones about the other?
Are negative stories about one side covered more frequently than that of the other?
What is the tone of the readers who announce those stories?
Who will be interviewed regarding the above stories?
And what will the content of the special programs about the political scene include?
Determining biases in print sports reporting is difficult because it occurs only frequently. Not so when listening to television commentators.
There’s one easy method of determining whether your TV play-by-play announcer and analysts are propaganda merchants:
When a team has a losing season the announcers begins lauding unproven rookies as the next coming of Babe Ruth or Sandy Koufax and talk about the talent on the team’s minor league affiliates, instead of talking about the opposition the team will face in the playoffs.
As certain as day follows night, there will always be biases in news coverage, much of it unintentional. That’s because while reporters might attempt to report the news in a none prejudicial manner, doing so in most cases is almost impossible. That’s because biases are part of all individual’s DNA.
While public relations people are an integral facet of the news business, there’s a big difference between the jobs that separate reporters
and PR people. Journalists are trained to be impartial, even though in reality their biases are evident to media observers from the way they approach a story, to the people they choose to be interviewed, the quotes they include and the facts they exclude.
PR practitioners are trained to be biased and should be. That’s why clients hire them. It’s their job to present the positive side of a client’s product or position on specific issues. But that does not mean they should mislead or lie to a reporter. They should always be truthful.
And that’s an unbiased statement.
