More Media Bias

HMTKSteve

I was just cruising Yahoo News when I came across an article about the Baltimore mayor: Raid signals more trouble for Baltimore mayor . Interested I read the article. In the article (and other news articles all over the web, I searched) I could not find a single reference to the political affiliation of the mayor. Care to make a guess on affiliation? Care to make a guess as to why this information was omitted?

Answer via wikipedia

Ilmarinen

Care to make a guess on affiliation? Care to make a guess as to why this information was omitted?

Because it isn't relevant to the story?

Kate Monster

Funny how I have to bend over backwards to find "liberal" media? I need to listen to podcasts and streaming audio in order to listen to progressive radio shows (as they are not widely available (but I can easily find Savage and Rush almost anywhere I go), I have between 8 and 10 on MSNBC (which only covers a few stories), and I have to go online to search for liberal news agencies and blogs. Why is this? Could it be because the closest I can get to a "liberal" bias in larger news organization is BBC and NPR (both of which are noted world-wide for being UN-biased, not a liberally biased). It seems to me that conservatives determine that anything that doesn't explicitly support their agenda is by default liberal, rather than unbiased. Yes, our American Mass Media is and has been SO tough on our neo-con regime as they allowed them cart blanch and still seem to allow McCain cart blanch. Seriously, this is no more than neo-cons making a statement so often, that they hope the American people will swallow it. Funny how most large media companies are OWNED and OPERATED by conservatives. Wow, those poor disenfranchised conservative.... really, give me a break!

HMTKSteve

I did not specifically state liberal or conservative bias in this instance. However I have noticed that more often the word "Democrat" will be left out of a negative piece about a Democratic politician than the word "Republican" is left off of a negative piece about a Republican politician.

You can find Rush, Savage, etc on the radio because they are entertainers. They are not members of the news media and to use them in this example is disingenuous. Some people confuse them with the news media but some people also confuse John Stewart and Stephen Colbert with the news media as well.

When the news media chooses to omit information it usually includes in reporting on some articles it calls into question their biases. If they have a policy of not saying which party affiliation a politician belongs too than fine, just be consistent. In the case of national political figures party affiliation can sometimes be left off. I don't think many people would not know that "Clinton" is a Democrat and "Bush" is a Republican. If, however, one of their children decided to go to the other side than their party affiliation should be part of the news story because it would be unusual.

The other problem that comes up is if you do a search on the web for negative stories about a given political party (say Googling Democrat+Scandal) this article will not show up. One could then falsely draw the conclusion that there are more negative stories about Republican politicians when in fact you can't know because the writers of these negative articles sometimes choose to leave off the party affiliation. (Yes, sometimes an article mentions both parties in the text).

Kate Monster

I did not specifically state liberal or conservative bias in this instance. However I have noticed that more often the word "Democrat" will be left out of a negative piece about a Democratic politician than the word "Republican" is left off of a negative piece about a Republican politician.

Please cite specific cases, or you have no leg to stand on. It isn't like they gave Spitzer an easy time of it because he was a Democrat, now is it?

Kate Monster

What does the party affiliation have to do with ANYTHING? Unless it is a scandal involving the RNC and DNC and their funding/agenda, how does it reflect on the party in general? I do not see the relevance. If you are looking for bias, look at the content of the story, not labels that mean nothing in context of the story or the scandal. Also, an African American female leader... lets think about the likelihood that she is a Republican just based on demographics... seriously.

ladyobsolete

Funny how most large media companies are OWNED and OPERATED by conservatives. Wow, those poor disenfranchised conservative.... really, give me a break!

This is a really important point. There are several levels at which bias is developed. There is the level of the reporter, which, admittedly is more liberal. But there is also the level of the editor and owner, which is mostly conservative. There is also the level of the funder, and most advertising interests are similarly conservative. Many advertisers have preferences what pages of a magazine or news paper story they want to be sharing. Then there is the level of availability: where is information coming out most readily? Whitehouse press conferences present the Bush administration's interests that are easily recited to news consumers by reporters. This will, of course, be different when the administration changes, but looking back on previous records, can anyone really deny the spiral of silence that occurred at the beginning of the Iraq war? Please people, at that point you had two conservative reporters on the air for every one liberal.

These are all pressures on the media that filter what news gets to the public and in what level of completeness. While liberal news can get through a conservative news source and conservative news can get through a liberal news source, the majority of pressures, I would contend, push the media to be biased toward conservative interests. You really can't just site one example because this is a matter of filters and not concrete laws of what can and cannot be published.

Really, to get more, I highly recommend Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Herman and Chomsky.

Jason

There is no such thing as a conservative or liberal reporter. In the newsroom, your personal views don't count. Reporters write what happens. It's that simple. We give all the information we have to give that is relevant. Holding anything back -- anything, any angle -- only makes us vulnerable to one-up-manship by competition.

Talking heads you see on television, by the way, are not reporters. They are commentators.

Funfetus

Maybe it's because the mayor of Baltimore is always a democrat.

I learned that from Watching The Wire.

edit: Or maybe it's because they just don't mention it. I just checked a dozen or so articles on a Google News search for "mayor", and the only articles that mentioned the political party were articles about elections.

ladyobsolete

I find that to be a beautiful but limited belief. Regardless of whether someone is intentionally or unintentionally biased, there will be some element of it. We are human, not robots. And while we may be charged with impartiality and strive to realize it, there will always be a bit of the human that is selecting what facts are "relevant." In this thread, we have already started debating the relevance of an individual's party affilitation in news reporting. Do not pretend that this is a solid and unbiased choice because both its ommitance and inclusion are signs of bias in one direction or the other.

Furthermore, beyond content bias there is subject selection itself. Who chooses what news is covered and what is not? Going back to the the most defined example of media bias in recent history, consider the massive anti war protests that occurred before the Iraq war that got minimal coverage. Consider the faulty sources that where noted by the BBC but recieved little recognition in the US media.

Kate Monster

Sometimes the facts are "biased". By this I mean, sometime the facts bear out one side's ideas over another. It seems to me that everyone wants the facts to be "malleable" to both positions, and this is rarely the case. It is strange to me when people are unwilling to say, "Hm, the facts on this one go against my belief, so my belief must be incorrect and I should adjust my world-view accordingly." Instead, people in general would prefer to hold bogus beliefs and call the facts "biased" rather than adjust their ideas. I cannot tell you the number of times I have been proved incorrect on a subject. When this is the case, I re-assess and change my views. I am grateful for these occasions.

ladyobsolete

But is that bias or is that just the truth? At the same time, can the truth ever be so pure that there is not room for bias? Even in the sciences there are constantly competing schools of thought and it isn't always clear which school is objectively "right." Is it then bias that guides our perceptions? We accept the "truth" that best corresponds with our already established perceptions.

Kate Monster

But is that bias or is that just the truth?

It is the truth, thus "biased" being in quotes.

At the same time, can the truth ever be so pure that there is not room for bias? Even in the sciences there are constantly competing schools of thought and it isn't always clear which school is objectively "right." Is it then bias that guides our perceptions? We accept the "truth" that best corresponds with our already established perceptions.

And that is what I am complaining about. There are times when there is no bias. Certainly many facts can have varied implications, that lead people to have differing beliefs. I am more concerned with people complaining that the media reports things like "There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," and "intelligent documents presented to the administration prior to the invasion of Iraq, it was clear that they had no ties to the terrorists that planned and executed the 9/11 attacks, and there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction." Those are facts that bear out some views and destroy others. People complaint about some simple facts being biased, but sometimes they ARE! I am not saying that they are always bearing out liberal ideals, this is just one infuriating example, I just mean that sometimes facts are facts, and people try to say they are biased, rather than accepting them as truth.

HMTKSteve

Facts should always be reported, the more facts the better. Sometimes you can not report all of the facts because you do not know them. If you later update the report with new facts that is all good.

However, knowing a fact and holding it back because it is a fact you do not want to report is wrong (unless reporting that fact would cause more harm than good).

Not everyone knows that every mayor of Baltimore is a Democrat. Not every black person in politics is a Democrat. Also, not every article on this particular subject included a picture of the mayor.

As I said earlier (and Jason repeated) the talking heads on TV are not reporters. They are talking editorials. All of them have biases that intrude upon what they put into words. To think otherwise is foolish. Even those who do not sound biased are still biased in the stories they choose to talk about and the people they choose to interview.

When someone reports on news as much information as possible should be included. Assuming that everyone "knows" a person is a Democrat because they are a black politician is asinine and only betrays the reporter/editors view of the world.

Here is a link to a kooky right-wing blog where they detail a case of CNN not reporting the political affiliation of a Representative charged with assault and battery. CNN did later add that information but their political desk should have been able to clue the news desk in right away.

Kate Monster

Also, not every article on this particular subject included a picture of the mayor.

I would wager that some of those other articles (whether or not they had pictures) did state that she was a Democrat. Again, I ask for an explanation of its relevance.

When someone reports on news as much information as possible should be included. Assuming that everyone "knows" a person is a Democrat because they are a black politician is asinine and only betrays the reporter/editors view of the world.

You are attributing my statement to the reporter. If the reporter was writing for a mostly locally utilized publication, the likelihood that their readership already knew her party alignment. Also, I did not say that ALL Black and female politicians are Democrats, merely that statistically, it is more likely that they are a Democrat. I think you are making a mountain out of a mole-hill. You assume there is some bias at play, when the fact that she is a Democrat is irrelevant.