By
Brandon Dennis
January 11, 2007
A long time ago, at a community college far, far away, I took a course on journalism and critical analysis. One day my professor split us up into groups and gave us an assignment: find a current political issue and make an argument either for or against it. Our group decided to tackle the Patriot Act, and after reading it we concluded that it really wasn't the horrible breach in civil rights that we were told it was.
We gave our presentation to the class and were met with stunned silence. One vocal student responded by asking us if we knew what the acronym USA PATRIOT stood for (it stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001), as if the answer to this question would completely invalidate the actual content of the Act. Thus we began to argue, and after watching us go back and forth, our teacher interceded and gave us a lengthy lecture.
I'm not exactly sure how it pertained to the topic, but she told us at that moment in a very blunt, confident manner that Fox News was the most biased and blatantly partisan media publication in existence. If I do recall correctly, I think I actually laughed out loud, for I was met with harsh stares and evil looks from some of my classmates (most notably by the rather vocal one). Having immersed myself in media of various formats over the past few years, I have had time to reflect upon the words of my former teacher and am obliged to disagree with her.
Now, I do not disagree with her because I think that Fox News is unbiased. Far from it. I think the fact that they present themselves as "fair and balanced" is silly. Rather, I disagree with her because I think that all news media are equally biased and equally partisan.
When a reporter sifts through the news of the day and chooses the story that he or she is to report on, they don't do so free of bias. It is through a reporter's (or publication's) own personal bias, influenced by religious or political beliefs, personal experiences or professional expediency, that they choose a topic, find a source or otherwise mold their article.
Even though it is illegal to do so, too often when journalists interview a source, they craft their questions to elicit responses that either agree with their own viewpoint or make a contrary one look ridiculous. And when they can get neither, they can quote a statement to say whatever they want it to, for example, turning "I am sure that there is no such thing as a fairy," into "I am...a fairy."
That said, I do not think that bias is necessarily a bad thing. Since we are all biased and since it is impossible to be wholly free from it, it would be better for us to simply admit our bias and get on with things instead of pretending that it isn't there. It is a good thing that we have so many sources of news out there that report different stories in different ways, for if we had just select stories reported from only one viewpoint we would be left with a very incomplete knowledge of the issues.
I listen to talk radio while I am at work, and I get raked over the coals by friends for doing so. After all, they say, those radio talk show personalities are all biased sell-outs who do not adhere to the same standards as journalists.
An argument can be made for this, but the nice thing about talk radio is that many of them admit their bias and don't put up a false veneer of pristine journalistic nonpartisanship. They instead make purposeful arguments that they are passionate about and leave it to the listener to either accept their argument or do a little fact checking on their own to verify it.
The problem with the old media, as it has come to be known, is that it dresses itself up as a sort of untouchable standard of truthfulness and this presents many problems, the greatest of which is a misguided sense of infallibility. It is from behind the shield of mainstream professional publications that some journalists, such as Jayson Blair, Jack Kelly and Janet Cooke have been caught plagiarizing other sources or completely fabricating stories. And let us not forget "Rathergate" and his escapade with the Killian documents. It is only when people feel sufficiently invulnerable to outside criticism that they can muster the unfortunate tendency to betray journalistic standards and simply lie.
It is naïve to consider any media source to be unbiased. We cannot rely on one form of media, be it talk radio, newspapers, the internet or news broadcasts, if we want to know what is really going on out there. The responsibility is ours to peruse many different forms of media and make our own informed decisions instead of taking The New York Times, CNN or Fox News at face value.
My former teacher was wrong not because Fox News is not biased to conservative thought, but rather because she gave the impression that all major news broadcasts are superior to Fox News because they are not. Instead, we should be glad that Fox leans conservative (and that everything else leans liberal) so that we can familiarize ourselves with different points of view in order to become more informed individuals. Otherwise we just become pawns to those who monopolize the media.
Reach columnist Brandon Dennis at brandondennis@thedaily.washington.edu.
5 Comments
#1 Sean Kellogg
on January 11, 2007 at 3:35 p.m.(Aptos, CA | Unverified Name)
The "everyone is biased so leave FOX alone" argument is both old and weak. The difference between FOX and CNN is that FOX has made the explicit decision to seek a certain kind of TV viewer by showing news of interest to talk radio listeners. Good for them, I say, use the free market to make money!
CNN, and others, have a different market. A market of people interested in news, preferably unbiased news. To accomplish this goal they have a number of institutional checks to ensure what gets reported is as objectively true as possible. If a reporter were to "craft their questions to elicit responses that either agree with their own viewpoint," the editor steps in and pulls the plug. Which reminds me, such behavior is not, and never will be, illegal. Read the 1st Amendment.
FOX purpose is to make money, just like CNN. FOX does it by appealing to the right; CNN seeks a more broad based clienttel. It's market based economics, not justification to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
#2 Josh Larios
on January 12, 2007 at 12:44 p.m.(UW Campus | Unverified Name)
Really? It's _illegal_ for a reporter to ask leading interview questions? Help me out here; my google-fu is failing me. Please point me to a citation of that law. Or am I naive in thinking that columnists, like journalists, should be able to back up their statements of fact with actual evidence?
#3 Shaun Lee
on January 13, 2007 at 2:18 a.m.(Lakewood, WA | Unverified Name)
Fallacy 1: Equivocation in mixing unconscious bias with actual bias (hmmm...maybe the word prejudice should be used here) and lumping all forms of media together (except for the poor talk radio hosts) and thus using it in a misleading fashion in an attempt to tar all other non-Fox networks and forms of media. Which leads us to...
Fallacy 2: Non-sequitor. Even if all forms of media were actually deliberately biased (an unsustainable assertion as it is), the question must be the extent of their biasness i.e. some must be less biased than others. Included in this assessment must be a determination of whether there is a good faith attempt at being non-baised e.g. AP, Bloomberg etc. And furthermore, that doesn't take Fox off the hook for pushing a very particular agenda.
Which brings us to...
Distinction 1: Editorial and News. Whether "old" or "new" media and without a definition here I will presume old refers to non-internet, non-news cable network types of media, which in turn refers to "new" media, there is a distinction to be made between the editorial section (where the paper sure takes a particular stance or conscious bias) and the news section where I will note that the best Mr Dennis comes up with is unconscious bias. Thus while I may dislike CNN's Lou Dodd for pushing his populist rhetoric, it doesn't permeate the rest of its news programming unlike say Fox. There is a reason why this distinction exists and conflating the two is being sloppy at best and disingenuous at worst.
Distinction 2: Reality of news reporting. More often than not, the frustration with the "old media" is that in their attempt to be balanced, they lose objectivity and that's bias. See e.g. the pre-Dover trial media presentation of Intelligent Design. The entire he-said, she-said approach gives the impression of a scientific debate where there was none. This is balanced but it sure isn't objective.
Issue 1: Does reality have a "socio-political-economic liberal bias"? Or conservative one? This is relevant in assessing whether a report or an entire network is biased in the sense that it is non-objective. Obviously, if reality has a liberal bias, then reporting in a liberal fashion isn't being biased but simply being true to reality. Sometimes there is a right and a wrong answer (see e.g. the perpetual false dichotomy with regards to the adult and embryonic stem-cell debate or even that of globalization and "social justice") and by deliberately ignoring the strongest arguments of the other side, that's real bias. However, ignoring factual distortions and not giving the other side a venue to perpetuate those views is not being biased, that's just being objective.
But nevertheless, it's nice for The Daily to have what appears to be a Social Conservative for a columnist for it appears to be a lonely voice and as he points out, is a viewpoint worth at least noticing.
So how about a economic conservative? We have libertarians on campus and it would be nice for their viewpoints to get mainstream coverage.
#4 Shaun Lee
on January 13, 2007 at 2:28 a.m.(Lakewood, WA | Unverified Name)
And separately, I'm not entirely sure if Mr Dennis ever did any research or took any courses on First Amendment law and in particular libel because his example about the (deliberate) misquotation is just flat out wrong.
That is a libelous statement that would not receive First Amendment protection. Even under the most stringent protections available under New York Times v. Sullivan, the public official simply has to show that a false statement was make with actual malice i.e. that it was false or made recklessly in disregard of the truth.
The defamatory imputation is what is important here and therefore the ellipses are of no bar to a successful suit made here because the average reader of reasonable intelligence will take it to constitute an admission of homosexuality whereas the original statement of which it was made had nothing to do to that effect.
I realize that not all of us are lawyers or necessarily well read in a particular area of law but seriously where's the fact checking in this regard?
#5 matthood
on October 5, 2007 at 5:45 p.m.(Astoria, NY | Unverified Name)
Freedom of the press died when Gov.George Bush became the President of the United States. Bush's foot-soldiers of former CIA Free press of disinformation and the CIA's domestic propaganda, who had worked for the CIA Director George H W Bush's Sr., who used his old former staff in the cold war program called,"Operation Mocking Bird" by his former staff,who had put thousands of former CIA and military intelligence officers, they had thousands of Republicans journalistic spies, who flooded the American media and journalist style on those who used their elite propaganda and disinformation skills in the mass propaganda media, who started the war on the truth, to put both Bush's into the White House, who spied on domestically for the CIA on Americans who went to work for those who help to slaughtered the national press and to imprison those who are against us the author of the CIA coup de ta, that was written in the 1940's by Kermit Roosevelt and General H N Schwarzkopf in Iraq on the behalf of the Kings of the earth(Bankers) . The pacification and the decision to privatizes the economies of the middle east of Iraq by the US Army, has been made a long, long, time ago by the pillars of America's NSA agencies with the consideration CFR and the OSS/CIA/and Military intelligence.. If Bush Sr. had be elected to a second term he would have removed Saddam Hussein himself. The fanatic's of the Neo-con's war of words declared war by treating Clinton by treating him like a combatant in the mass media. They tried to pervert the foreign policy of President Clinton just like they did with President Carter, by using the pen as a mighty sword of deceptions just like the CIA circumvented the government of Iran in 1953. Because Clinton refuse to invade Iraq!To remove Saddam Hussein; President Clinton was impeached like Julius Caesar, who was surrounded by his greedy friends whose lust for power created the Bush scheme to divide this nation by creating an enemy that does not exist. 80% of the nation leave in the middle. It is only the politicians paranoid delusions who believe in the right and the left; which does not exist! It was the CIA's coup de ta to put a man in the White House who has failed at everything in life whom all of his businesses has failed through neglect. Where billions of dollar disappeared during the Bank scandal under the Bush regime. Our current President GE Bush Jr is a third generation intelligence officer. His grandfather, Prescott Bush was a US Army intelligence officers and a pillars of the CIA/OSS Is son GHW Bush Sr. was a US Army Recon officers and a pilot, who was a OSS officers who became a domestic CIA officers and later a CIA director. His, son, GW Bush Jr a gradate from Yale, who is famous for being the recruitment grounds for the CIA in Skull and Bones for pro ducting CIA, NSA, CFR, Bush was recruited for the CIA domestic roles from the day the he alleged graduated. Bush has been the most unelectable man who does or have the courage to be brave as the commander in chief is supposed to have, The CIA who used the American tax payer as their personal slush fund and America's tax-exempt right wing foundations and right right wing think tanks as an army of disinformation officers who put an ungrateful man who is a kind of disagrees to America who is a National Security threat who is beginning the election of into the White House who sounding as thousands dollar.
Wall Street and the big business with the CIA with big oil company money paid for Bush to Sabotaged his war in Iraq, to make it a failed state. By the time
we get out it cost us 3 trillion dollar, all because they wanted cheap oil. That's all!
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