MEDIA LITERACY

Case Study

Bias in the News

All news is biased. News, after all, is primarily selective storytelling, not objective science. Editors choose certain events to cover and ignore others; reporters choose particular words or images to use or reject. The news is also biased in favor of storytelling, drama, and conflict; in favor of telling “two sides of a story”; in favor of powerful and connected sources; and in favor of practices that serve journalists’ space and time limits.

In terms of overt political bias, public perception says that mainstream news media operate mostly with a liberal bias. A June 2006 Harris Poll found 38 percent of adults surveyed detected a liberal bias in news coverage while 25 percent sensed a conservative bias (31 percent were “not sure” and 5 percent said there was “no bias”; see Table 13.1).¹

Given the primary dictionary definitions of liberal (adj., “favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs”) and conservative (adj., “disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change”), it is not surprising that a high percentage of liberals and moderates gravitate to mainstream journalism.² A profession that honors documenting change, checking power, and reporting wrongdoing would attract fewer conservatives, who are predisposed to “preserve existing conditions” and to “limit change.” As sociologist Herbert Gans demonstrated in Deciding What’s News, his 1970s landmark study of newsroom values, most reporters are socialized into a set of work rituals—especially getting the story first and telling it from “both sides” to achieve balance.³ In fact, this commitment to “balance” mandates that if journalists interview someone on the Left, they must also interview someone on the Right. Ultimately, such a balancing act makes conventional news a middle-of-the-road proposition. In fact, most mainstream journalists (and 50 percent of Americans) identify themselves chiefly as political moderates.

Still, the “liberal bias” narrative persists. In 2001 Bernard Goldberg, a former producer at CBS News, published Bias. Using anecdotes from his days at CBS, he maintained that national news slanted to the left.⁴ In 2003, Eric Alterman, a writer for the Nation, countered with What Liberal Media? Alterman admitted that mainstream news media do reflect more liberal views on social issues, but that they have become more conservative on politics and economics—displayed in their support for deregulated media and concentrated ownership.⁵ Alterman says the liberal bias tale persists because conservatives keep repeating that story in the major media.

Since journalists are primarily storytellers, and not scientists, searching for liberal or conservative bias should not be the main focus of our criticism. As The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart told Bill Moyers in 2003 on PBS’s NOW, much of the highest-profile “noise” in the public sphere is made by 10 percent of the population—5 percent on the Left and 5 percent on the Right, while most of us remain somewhere in between. Under time and space constraints, most journalists serve the routine process of their profession, which calls on them to moderate their own political agendas. News reports, then, are always “biased,” given human imperfection in storytelling and in communicating events/issues through the lens of language, images, and institutional values. Rather, fully critiquing news stories—whether they are fair, whether they represent an issue’s complexity, whether they provide verification and documentation, whether they represent multiple views, and whether they serve democracy—should be our focus.

APPLYING THE CRITICAL PROCESS

DESCRIPTION Find print news stories on the same subject from two different sources. Make copies of each story, and note the pictures chosen to tell the story.

ANALYSIS Find patterns in the coverage. How are the stories treated differently in the two sources? Are there similarities in the words chosen or images used? What kinds of details are presented? Who are the sources the reporters use to verify their information?

INTERPRETATION What do these patterns suggest? Can you make any interpretations or arguments based on the kinds of details included, sources used, or words/images chosen? How are the stories told in relation to their importance to the entire community or nation? How complex are the stories?

EVALUATION Which story has the strongest bias? Why? Make a judgment on how this story serves as a representation of a particular view or opinion.

ENGAGEMENT In an e-mail or letter report your findings to relevant editors. How did they respond?