Politico, a left-leaning web magazine, just published an essay about the bubble in which journalists live. According to the authors the bubble is not just geographic, but also ideological. According to Politico, the media bubble served to insulate journalists from the people and issues that ultimately led to the election of Donald Trump. For most journalists it was not an issue of whether Hillary Clinton would win, but by how great a margin. Was it perhaps because they didn’t understand what was happening across the country? According to Politico,
Nearly 90 percent of all internet publishing employees work in a county where Clinton won, and 75 percent of them work in a county that she won by more than 30 percentage points.
Another essay, this one by pollster and statistician Nate Silver, (the golden boy of recent electoral race coverage), makes the argument that the national media were the victims of group think leading up to the 2016 Presidential election. Silver’s essay spends some time reviewing a premise introduced by James Surowiecki in his book The Wisdom of Crowds. Surowiecki’s thesis is that networking theory, applied to information flow, can yield superior results given certain conditions. Whether the crowd is professional journalists or citizen journalists, the idea is that collective wisdom is superior to the wisdom of any one member of the group. That is fine if the conditions are met. If not, group-think, an idea popularized in the 1970s by Irving Janis, leads to poor judgement and low-quality decision-making. According to Janis,
the more amiability and esprit de corps there is among the members of a policy-making ingroup, the greater the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by groupthink, which is likely to result in irrational and dehumanizing actions directed against outgroups. (https://web.archive.org/web/20100401033524/http://apps.olin.wustl.edu/faculty/macdonald/GroupThink.pdf)
Both articles point to a serious problem for national media coverage of politics. More than ever, national journalists are more highly educated, more liberal, less religious, richer, younger, more urban, and much more likely to live in communities with like-minded neighbors. The liberal, coastal, elite journalist is becoming the norm when it comes to national media coverage, and that is a problem for the future of the industry. Some have argued that this trend has led to an erosion of trust and created a credibility vacuum where fake news and lies can thrive.
This was not always the case. Journalists have not always been so out of touch with the audience that they serve. The failure of local and regional newspapers is a significant contributing factor. According to Politico, labor statistics are a clear indication of the trend.
In late 2015, during Barack Obama’s second term, these two trend lines—jobs in newspapers, and jobs in internet publishing—finally crossed. For the first time, the number of workers in internet publishing exceeded the number of their newspaper brethren. Internet publishers are now adding workers at nearly twice the rate newspaper publishers are losing them.
As news shifts from local newspapers and local reporters who reflected their communities’ values, to national news organizations located in major metropolitan centers on the coasts, it has becoming increasingly likely that the news that we’re consuming on social media and television is out of touch with mainstream values and main street sensibilities.
Another theory that may be useful to understand what is happening is Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann’s Spiral of Silence theory. According to this theory, unpopular ideas are pushed to the margins, where they slowly lose favor and spiral downward to eventual silence. We’re fine with this if it’s a bad idea, one that does not deserve to be sustained. But what about when an unpopular idea is silenced because those in authority don’t want to give it a hearing? What about unpopular ideas that are banished to the margins because groupthink has created a hostile climate for those kinds of ideas? What if the lack of ideological diversity in our newsrooms creates an echo chamber that drowns out dissenting voices?
Conservatives have consistently accused the national media of having a liberal bias, and that appears to be supported by these essays. But I’ll close with this quote from the Politico article…
Resist—if you can—the conservative reflex to absorb this data and conclude that the media deliberately twists the news in favor of Democrats. Instead, take it the way a social scientist would take it: The people who report, edit, produce and publish news can’t help being affected—deeply affected—by the environment around them. Former New York Times public editor Daniel Okrent got at this when he analyzed the decidedly liberal bent of his newspaper’s staff in a 2004 column that rewards rereading today. The “heart, mind, and habits” of the Times, he wrote, cannot be divorced from the ethos of the cosmopolitan city where it is produced. On such subjects as abortion, gay rights, gun control and environmental regulation, the Times’ news reporting is a pretty good reflection of its region’s dominant predisposition. And yes, a Times-ian ethos flourishes in all of internet publishing’s major cities—Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco and Washington. The Times thinks of itself as a centrist national newspaper, but it’s more accurate to say its politics are perfectly centered on the slices of America that look and think the most like Manhattan.
Something akin to the Times ethos thrives in most major national newsrooms found on the Clinton coasts—CNN, CBS, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Politico and the rest. Their reporters, an admirable lot, can parachute into Appalachia or the rural Midwest on a monthly basis and still not shake their provincial sensibilities: Reporters tote their bubbles with them.
In today’s world, it is almost impossible to not come across a news story that is biased. “News, after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science.” (Campbell, 455) We saw a growing increase in bias when the 2016 Presidential race was going on. These news stories are generally negative towards the candidate being discussed. “If you look at all presidential nominees since Reagan and their coverage during the general election… all but Barack Obama in 2008 received, on balance, negative coverage,” said Thomas E. Patterson. “So, you know, that’s the press in its, in its usual mode.” The media bends the words of people in order to fit their own agenda, ultimately leading to media consumers not knowing what to believe.
Media bias is a problem that has plagued journalism and news reporting for quite some time, but has reached a point where it’s very hard to find true, honest reporting. In light of the upcoming election, it’s even more difficult to find non-biased, honest facts. From the Case Study, “Bias in the News” says, “News, after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science” (p 455) However, I think that news reporting shouldn’t be selective. It should stick to the obligations of journalism: honest and fair reporting. From the “On the Media” Podcast, talking about Donald Trump’s election and media coverage, Thomas E. Patterson stated, ” The coverage of the first 100 days broke 80% negative to 20% positive.” Even if I do not endorse or support Trump, the fact of the matter is that Journalist have an obligation to the truth, and based off of that statistic, it’s very likely that some of the coverage was biased and twisted from the truth- or vice versa. Biased news is a problem that media faces today, and I truly do believe that there needs to be a change.
The media is not as Patterson claims, “…obsessed with Donald Trump…” What people need to understand is that media is a business with a lot of power. The links that one can see on any social media platform that give Trump criticism are not doing it because they see it fit. They post these links because every individual that clicks on them earns them a small portion of money from the ads they have on the site. It does not matter if you accidentally click on the link for a second or if you stay and read a thirty minute article. Once they have received your like, comment, and share they are content. The textbook states, “for more than two hundred years U.S. courts have protected the news media’s right to criticize our political leaders.” The major news stations such as CNN and FOX news are so focused on Trump and the value in reporting good or bad about him that with their rights, it does not matter if they lie here and their. They are made bias to attract a certain type of audience.
People will always say that news outlets and journalist are biased. In a study done by the Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, they reported that “both Democratic and Republican leaders are able “to influence perceptions of bias” by attacking the news media.” We know that current president, Donald Trump, is know for attacking and accusing the media of being biased and fake news. President Trump has even gone a step further and even had certain news outlets like the Huffington Post, BuzzFeed News, Mother Jones, Gawker, Univision, the Des Moines Register, Politico, the Washington Post, and even the conservative National Review banned from having access to him. Trump also claims that the media only shows the negative things that he does, but they are just doing their jobs. Tomas E. Patterson said, “Barack Obama in 2008 received, on balance, negative coverage. So, you know, that’s the press in its, in its usual mode. They’re on the attack. They’re looking for the critical story, things that go bad, rather than things that go good.” News outlets and journalists are suppose to bring light to the negative things that are occurring in our government and making whoever did something bad accountable for their actions.
People from all political parties can say that almost every news outlet and journalist can be biased, but in a study done by Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, it reported that “both Democratic and Republican leaders are able “to influence perceptions of bias” by attacking the news media.” We know very well that current President, Donald Trump, is very well known to attack and accuse news outlets and journalists of being biased or fake news. President Trump even banned news outlets like the Huffington Post, BuzzFeed News, Mother Jones, Gawker, Univision, the Des Moines Register, Politico, the Washington Post, and even the conservative National Review from having direct access to him. But Trump was not the only president to receive negative news coverage. Tomas E. Patterson said, “Barack Obama in 2008 received, on balance, negative coverage. So, you know, that’s the press in its, in its usual mode. They’re on the attack. They’re looking for the critical story, things that go bad, rather than things that go good.” This comes to show that journalists are just doing their job, which to bring light to the negative things affecting our lives and government.
Journalists face some serious issues nowadays when writing about current events. It is mentioned how difficult it is for journalists in the quote, “the most frequent ethical dilemmas encountered in most newsrooms across the United States involve intentional deception, privacy invasions, and conflicts of interest.” from the Case Study: Bias in The News (pg. 455). It would appear that people often face moral conflict when reporting on serious issues. Quite a few journalists go as far as to over describe or exaggerate new stories just to gain more attention. Conversely, When the first few months of the Presidency of Donald Trump was being covered, the media were all over him. They specifically covered him “even though Donald Trump for his part certainly goes after the press at every opportunity.” (On the Media – Too much of a bad thing). They mainly pursued him because of all the things he would say. They were mainly trying to capture his tone. A lot of journalists were trying to go for the negative coverage of Donald trump. While they may or may not have their own views on him as a political figure, the majority of his coverage had a negative tone to it.
Media bias is extremely real, it is something that is hard to solve in a society of political polarization. Within the OTM podcast, it was stated that it is common for reporters to “Report on bad weather, not good weather” this shows that as human beings we have a tendency to give more attention to more negative and shocking news rather than something that may come across as boring or ordinary. With reference to politics, Bob Garfield stated that “…Trump supporters… think the GOP… have been quick to assert a liberal bias” and this idea is supported within the case study “Bias in the news” as the author reflects the statistics that 49% of republicans had a bias and 32% of democrats had a bias. In accordance to page 455 of the textbook, it is stated that “all news is bias to some degree” and this is evident and applicable to the world we live in today even through something as transparent as our news media, CNN is more left leaning and FOX is more right wing.
“Journalist favor storytelling with plenty of drama and conflict,” as quoted in the case study “Bias in the News,” (pg. 455). There is a lot of bias in the world of mass media everywhere there is a sense of favoritism as well as saying what they think is convenient for them. The journalist would rather write what they think people want to hear about to get them more out there and more money. “The conservative party was giving Hilary bad press even though they were trying to get her elected” (“To much of a bad thing” podcast). With this it says that what they were saying about her it just wasn’t working out with the press. With this is begins to say that people like to pick and choose what they believe in and would rather not care if its true or not because it is what they outmost believe in. I think there will always be biased especially within the mass media simply because it continues to grow and everyone chooses what they want to believe in and won’t change their mind about it.
https://www.wnyc.org/story/too-much-bad-thing/
As the Case Study mentions, Bias in the News, on page 455, “Let’s acknowledge up front that all news is biased to some degree. News, after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science.” When listening or reading about news stories you must take those stories with a grain of salt. Reporters, news stations, and journalists are making their money by being story tellers and drawing in their audience. They will tie some stories together and leave some sections out and as the stories get passed through from story to story and from person to person the original happenings may be totally indifferent from each other. They are supposed to strictly stick to the facts however the fact of the matter is is that in reality EVERYONE has their own opinions on things and will always voice those feelings in one way or another. So when a news story is being put together bias opinions will inevitably be incorporated into each story being put out to the world.
all news biased . in the news there has ti be some form of bias to create opinion and thoughts and feelings.according to pg. 455 of media and culture ” 37 percent of american’s see a great deal of bias in media”. by this a new company or journalist will have facts, but use bias opinions creating a feeling they need for there writing and story to create opinions. according to the podcast as you look at all presidential nominates since Reagan and their coverage during the general election democratic and republican all but Barack Obama in 2008 received unbalanced negative coverage so that the press in it usually mode they are on the attack they are looking for the criticize story things that go bad rather then things that go good (Thomas Patterson).” this quote really stuck out to me because it shows a great aspect of bias and how it can create negative feelings even through positive times. therefore news industries only want to create a bias atmosphere to keep viewers happy even if a certain thing isn’t true.
The media can have some biases, but we have to look at the whole picture to get a good understanding of what is going with the journalists. As the case study, “Bias in the News” says, “News, after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science” (p 455). We have to remember that the people reporting on stories have their own beliefs and perspective on the way something is happening. How can one say, “That is not true,” to a person who believes what they saw/heard/wrote about is true? It is all a matter of perspective, and that is exactly what the news and media is. It is not science that has exact numbers and answers that can be proven over and over again. A journalist writes what he or she believes is the truth (well at least most of the time, there are always exceptions). Those who are the subject of news reports will say it is overly negative, or an exaggeration of what actually happened. In the podcast Bob Garfield says, “If that’s the case, how do you even go about discerning what is overly negative and what is just reporting what you’re seeing?” Bias can exist in media, however most of the time people are just reporting what they see or hear, and believe to be true.
News media and coverage is something that can be easily manipulated if not read carefully. “Since journalists are primarily storytellers and not objective scientists, searching for liberal or conservative bias should not be the main focus of our media criticism.” (Media & Culture P. 455) made a clear point. At the end of the day, journalist are to remain unbiased. Audience, however have a strong power factor when it comes to the outcome of the media press. In the podcast they stated that Donald Trump was the voice of his campaign 2/3 of his run, as oppose to Hillary Clinton who was actually shadowed over by Trump’s voice. Trump banned certain news outlets / journalists to avoid any uncertainties that those selected news press and journalists can create and have a negative impact. Bias in the news media can be tricky; audience, journalists, and the persons that are involved all play into a formula of the outcome when it comes to journalism in today’s society and have a both negative, and positive impacts.
No matter what is going on in the country or the world there will always be people who believe the media is bias. Take Trump as an example, he was the first person to bring this whole “fake news” thing into the light. Fake news is a real thing, but he was using that term for articles or news companies that were treating him “unfairly”. According to Thomas E. Patterson Trump was not the only president to get negative press during their candidacy. “If you look at all presidential nominees since Reagan and their coverage during the general election, Democratic and Republican, all but Barack Obama in 2008 received, on balance, negative coverage.”(Patterson) Not all media is biased. There are journalists who are biased and only write stories that agree with their political views but not all journalists are like that. Most journalists follow a code. “Journalism’s code of ethics also warns reporters and editors not to place themselves in positions that produce a conflict of interest—that is, any situation in which journalists may stand to benefit personally from stories they produce.”(Media and Culture, pg. 459)
“All news is biased”. No matter what is being said about the news, there is always some bias in it.“37 percent of Americans see a great deal of potential bias in the media” (Media and Culture, pg 455). They will tell both sides to eliminate any bias, but they are still influenced by others. The news companies really only want money so they will put out whatever is going to get them the most. They need the public to agree with what they put out because if not, they lose viewers which accounts to money being generated. According to Thomas Patterson, this bias isn’t a partisan bias but rather a “journalistic reflex or instinct.” They will always say what needs to be heard instead of pulling the facts.
I think the news can be very biased and knows how to get the attention of its viewers that listen to the news and read its publications daily. For the case study of Bias in the News “Politicians seeking to divert attention away from their flaws often try to score points with voters by “blaming” the media for something-usually for bias (pg 455)”. Then for the podcast states “as you look at all presidential nominates since Reagan and their coverage during the general election democratic and republican all but Barack Obama in 2008 received unbalanced negative coverage so that the press in it usually mode they are on the attack they are looking for the criticize story things that go bad rather then things that go good (Thomas Patterson)”. This quote means that the news tends to focus on more of the negative things instead of also including some of the positive aspects.
I have to agree that bias is everywhere just like the media. And also there is no possible way someone can be 100% free of bias. The media can be very biased in their articles. “It is the media’s responsibility to report the good and the bad”(WNYC Pod Cost) It is the responsibility of the listener and reader to see where the source is coming from and if it is credible. Everyone has their own belief if something is true or not it’s not the media’s job to tell people what they should believe. I really think Fox news is very biased toward the republican party and NBC and CNN more fair to the public because of my beliefs. In the textbook Media and Culture it says, “Editors choose certain events to cover and ignore others.” (Pg. 455) I think is why we have a lot of negativity between the media and president Trump because he went after the press and threatened certain Media for their reports so its only in nature that they defend their credibility and honor. It is also very biased when 2/3 of Trump’s presidency is being heard from his mouth which is biased. The press is not fair when it comes to reporting when things go wrong vs when they go right. I agree that they should be more balanced. By being more balanced, this is a way to win the public trust especially when bias is not felt in the reports.The problem begins when news organizations presenting the news also present many of their own opinions amongst discussion which influence consumers.
Journalism is a very interesting thing. You either get a journalist who writes the truth, or you get one who comes up with fake news. Many journalists spread fake news and they get a story that isn’t a hundred percent true. This gets everyone wild up, which is definitely what their goal is. They are trying to get you to either hate or love whatever they are writing about. Most of the time they only write what people wanna hear. They write about whatever is going to bring the most controversy. Even if that means lying through their teeth. This is one of the reasons wrong with journalism, because you never know how reliable the source is. When it comes to politics, say the presidential election, journalists I feel will put their opinion on how they feel, and not the truth. For example when Trump ran for president, I’m sure several journalists tried to write a story to make him look bad. Which is not right journalism should be a unbiased opinion, they should only write 100% true events or topics.
When it comes to bias in the news, I believe that the audience has a big influence. Journalists write what they think people want to read/hear. The case study in the textbook said that “ journalists favor storytelling with plenty of drama and conflict,” (“Bias in the News”, 455). This shows that journalists tend to write more about dramatic or bad situations than they do about pleasant situations. This is because people are naturally drawn to drama. They love it. That is why reality TV is so successful. In further support of this, Thomas E. Patterson said that the “press is too critical, underreporting the positive developments, over-reporting the negative,” (On the Media: Too Much of a Bad Thing). The same podcast also mentioned that journalistic instinct is to report on the bad, not the good. This is because journalists write what they think people are interested in. This is where the “bubble” comes in. If journalists are not surrounded by their audience, they will be out of touch and then they will write what they think people want to hear, and what they are told people want to hear.
Journalist picks stories that are interesting to the people no mater if it is real or fake. Example is when trump was running for president, and everyone who attacked him was pulling up fake stories to make sure he would not be president. some of those stories could be true though but journalist will do anything they can to make sure their work is good.
I feel that some news are biased to be biased it means, media bias is the bias or perceived bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of many events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. … There are a number of national and international watchdog groups that report on bias in the media. Most things put out by the news are heavily biased and it is a sad thing to see instead of having biased people we should not require them to do news for us we should have other people do if for us. An example of a biased example is O’Keefe also caught CNN Field Production Supervisor Gerald Sisnette wishing for President Trump’s death. “This is a story that’s not gonna go away,” Mr. Sisnette said. “Oh the Ukraine thing? Or just Trump in general?” the CNN whistleblower asked. “Trump in general. The only way this will go away is when he [Trump] dies. Hopefully soon,” Gerald Sisnette said.
I think that there is truth to the statement that news is biased, but it makes sense as the journalists themselves are humans, whom no matter if they try hard to stay objective or not, already have their own personal views on the subjects/people they are reporting on. It’s natural that personal feelings can be seen in some stories, just through the way it way written alone, though journalists should be aware of this and try their best to stay objective i dont believe it is the end of the world. In fact because some news channels for instance, do lean one way or another, this could give people more direction as to where they like to get their information. Although this can cause issues with the validity of some stories, i don’t believe this is always a bad thing as long as the facts stay just that, fact. I believe it is when we start delving into the all too common “fake news” that we should begin questioning and or avoiding specific papers/people/companies/etc. The book asks “When is it right to protect government secrets, and when should those secrets be revealed to the general public?”(455), I think that this is a very interesting question, because i do no believe the answer, if there is any, would be black or white. Obviously when is comes to publishing government secrets to the public many things must go into such an opinion, including but not limited to: can this do more harm that good such as mass panic, what is going on in currently that this may affect, what reaction will this cause, whom is involved, is it in the interest of the people or for journalism glory, is there any way this story may not be what it seems, and of course the personal judgement of the journalists/editors involved. When it comes to news, i believe most that we the people have the right to know the truth about most things in order to make our own opinions a out the subject. There are very few things that i believe should be withheld, usually topics of which could lead to mass panic or unnecessary war. Even confidential spying on citizens internet and call usage doesn’t bother me, but of course then again i dont have anything to hide either. Especially considering the pure amount of information gathered by such things is so massive and then gets funneled so specifically, i doubt the government is going to even notice or care that you secretly order toupees, or like to watch weird videos online, unless it is of clearly illegal content. In the podcast they talk about how “The coverage of the first 100 days broke 80% negative to 20% positive”(Thomas E. Patterson). Some may argue that this is a bad thing or lots of fake news as Trump sees it, but i believe that this more corresponds with the overall favor or lack of, toward Trump by the people themselves. Regardless if he ended up in the white house, at the end of the day many people have very strong opinions on him not only as a politician, but a person as well. I think that is is a good thing that there is so much media coverage of such things because although it may be negative, the people have a right to express such opinions on different the statements given or actions taken by our president. If anything, it makes me hopeful that more people will become involved in politics, as seeing people clearly are interested in such topics. Though of course that may be my own bias against the current resident of the oval office coming through in my writing.
Before beginning this assignment, I would have readily told you three things that I already knew about bias in journalism: that the media is undoubtedly bias, that the media is predominately liberally bias, and that Donald Trump would play into all this somehow. Thomas E. Patterson talks a lot about negative vs positive reporting and that the media is predominantly critical. In the OTM podcast, he said, “When you go back to the eight years of the Clinton administration, Democrats were somewhat more likely than Republicans to think that the media were biased. So now we have a Republican in the White House and, not surprisingly, it’s Republicans overwhelmingly who think the press has been unfair.”. The textbook has a similar idea and says “most research shows that people support news media outlets that seem to affirm their existing values and political leanings” (page 455). From both of these comments, it seems to me, that the media doesn’t really change but the bias from viewers does. While undertaking the task of reading the articles/ listening to the podcast I ironically found myself thinking in a bias way based on my beliefs. I think that being bias is a “normal” human thing; personally, I trust journalists and their respective outlets to do the right thing. I like how the textbook points out, “Under time and space constraints, most reporters follow the routine practices of their profession, which call on them to moderate their own political agendas.” (page 455). We as media consumers have to be smart and be our own journalists in a way by seeking good sources and holding the media accountable.
Adriane R. Colon-Casiano: According to the textbook, all forms of media contain some degree of bias. This is absolutely true, but, in my opinion, journalism is one sector of the media that tries to eliminate as much bias as possible. Journalists have to strike a balance between relevant and important information. For example, the podcast references the reporting of bad weather. Though it may seem like the manner in which this type of weather is exaggerated and meant to grab headlines, there may be some benefit in ensuring that people are well prepared for the worst case scenario that said storm can present. As for fake news, this blog post addresses many facets of the issue. The people who attack legitimate news sources often do so with an intent to silence them. The blog post references marginalized ideas and how national news outlets may not give an equal opportunity for these people to speak their opinions on a national scale. I think that if a movement makes enough noise in the state or local news then the national news will pick it up. The entire ‘fake news’ movement is based off of the fact that certain individuals spew ideology, whether it be right or wrong, and ideology is often to supported by facts. When facts are presented, the ideological group feels attacked and attacks back. In conclusion, if the attacking of legitimate news continues, let’s bring back gonzo journalism.
The influence now that the media has on voting and elections is absurd. Stated in the podcast, “Donald Trump, compared to what’s normal as President, received three times as much coverage (by the media).” And this is a trend that is continuing this year as we move into 2020 for the election. After every debate, rally or tweet from anyone who is even considering running for office, everything is taken out of context, split into small twitter sized clips and misinforms us. I believe that the journalists are the most informed, aside from those who seek out the information on elections, and ever-shrinking group, and yet is such a shame that I still believe they shouldn’t vote. Morally to be unbiased it would not be right to vote. The conflict of interests compromises your integrity as a journalist.
As the textbook stated there is bias to “some degree.” This bias however according to Thomas Patterson, this bias isn’t a partisan bias but rather a “journalistic reflex or instinct.” The problem doesn’t lie towards certain media outlets displaying some bias toward a particular party or group but in how we perceive that said bias. Part of that criteria, also mentioned by Patterson is tone. Certain negative news coverage perceived to negative by the Conservative party can be perceived to be positive news by the liberal party and vice versa. The pew study even reported that over 50% of news media outlets are more moderate than compared to conservative or liberal media outlets.
In the book, it is said that “all news is biased to some degree” and I think that this is the case for many reasons. I believe that since news is written and reported on by somebody – a journalist – who will inherently have SOME biases, that alone will make the news biased. Not only that, but news organizations see a reason today – now more than ever – to ensure that they appeal to their audiences. For example, most CNN and MSNBC viewers are likely to be liberal than not, whereas on Fox News, you’d be more likely to see a conservative viewer. That factor ensures that news sources are more likely to stay true to what their viewers’ views are, with the risk of losing viewers looming over them should they try to take a different approach. This also affects who you see on their programs/interviewed in their article. On CNN or MSNBC, you’ll often see a Democratic Congressperson/strategist/former politician/etc whereas once again, on Fox News, you’d see the opposite – with many Republicans being interviewed/asked for comment.
These factors all obviously contribute to bias, with the nature of the bias varying from organization-organization.
Another thing of note is the fact that a very polarizing figure in our time continues to viciously attack the majority of the media in a negative fashion – this figure being U.S. President Donald Trump. As a result, I think that his supporters – some of the most cult-like supporters we’ve seen in politics – are also being pitted against the media, which creates a dangerous dilemma, in my view. It is the job of the media in a well functioning democracy to report on facts and keep people accountable – when 40 percent of the country refuses to accept facts because they believe whatever their leader tells them, it creates a dangerous precedent in which I believe our democracy’s stability is threatened.
Another interesting note made in the podcast was that “around 2/3 of the reporting on Donald Trump doesn’t include sound-bytes from others, it is mostly about what Donald Trump has said” – and they later went on to say that the opposite was true for Hillary Clinton. I think this certainly heavily influences the way that the aforementioned “40 percent” of the country view the media. It has certainly been established that they don’t like the facts very much.
No matter what you believe – the truth is certainly undeniable. I believe that trust in the media is a. vital part in the foundation of democracy – and I certainly hope that this trust is restored, so that our democracy may function as is necessary.
I feel that having a bias opinion could be good and bad at times. It could be good because there are times when we all need to hear the opposing views to full understand each other. Now these views and opinions aren’t always good when they start to give false information for the benefit of taking down the opposite side. In the podcast it clearly states that Donald Trump had got three times the coverage and to me when something like that occurs not everyone’s thoughts are going to be good about him because some people don’t like him. This creates those false information and when they broadcast that for other people to see, that is a huge problem. At the same time people are forced to pick a side in which they want to talk about something. They can say what they feel bu question if people are going to care and just push their opinion to the side, which is exactly what the blog post is talking about in the end. Or they have the option to say something that will get people’s attention and stir conversations even when the information isn’t always true.
Page 455 of our textbook said “all news is bias to some degree”. When I read this statement I couldn’t agree with it any more! When it comes to supplying news and getting our information the Head people at the top get to choose what you are shown and what you aren’t being shown. People believe that they know what everybody should see and what should not be shown or told. After reading these articles and listing to the podcast it just shows that people are being bias all the time about what shows up online and what we get to see on our TVs and etc.
I think it is very necessary to acknowledge the fact that all news is biased to some measure as the textbook says, but I do think there certainly are ways to combat inner opinions one may have and share the story through a broad lens. The textbook states, “Fully critiquing news stories must depend, then, on whether they are fair, represent an issue’s complexity, provide verification and documentation, represent multiple views, and serve the open marketplace of ideas promoted by democracy” (455). If we take a look at the coverage of Donald Trump through the eyes of this statement alone, we must then ask ourselves if the “negative” reporting on him simply is reporting on what he does or if there is some political slant to it. The OTM podcast says, “From the perspective of the person who’s the subject of the news story, would that person see this news story as positive or negative? So it could be simply a development of something that reflects unfavorably on the individual” (2:07-2:21). With that being said, I feel as if there is constantly something to report on with Donald Trump, especially within the first 100 days, but also especially now; it seems like there is never a shortage of what could be reported on because of the controversiality that exists as him, as his tweets, as his policies, as anything else. In part, I do think it can be difficult to remain neutral or objective when nearly every day there is something to be talked about in regards to something that Donald Trump has said or done either recklessly or intentionally. On a different note, I’m not surprised at the incredible amount of coverage he has received since the dawn of his candidacy simply from the fact that he rose to the presidency from an already prominent celebrity figure in a sensationalist realm of reality TV.
I do heavily agree that news media is inherently in a bubble, but I don’t have a great way to solve it. We as the people determine what the publishers publish by what we choose to read and buy, but on the flip-side publishers can manipulate what we want to see, and what we believe, through what they choose to publish. “[T]o publish or not to publish. But making those decisions is a responsibility that falls to editors, a corollary to the great gift of our independence”. That is a quote from the textbook referring to printing something the government doesn’t want printed, but I think it can relate to the current climate of media bubbles as well. The media needs to choose what stories they think they can make money on, vs the stories that actually matter to us. Within the podcast, it talks at length of the great slander that came to Donald Trump. How 80% of the stories that talked about him were negative, even though 3 times as many stories were being written about him. People wanted to hear negative things about Trump, and not many people even cared about the Hilary aspect of the election because in all of their coverage, they never thought Trump even stood a chance. Even in the podcast it talks about how most of the things said Hillary in the media were said through Trump’s quotes. With this over saturation of Trump content it’s no wonder why he won the election, it was their own hubris that brought their own downfall. The problem comes less from the media being out of touch, than the media trying to stay in touch so hard that they end up hurting the very causes their trying to fight for. They are always trapped in the bubble of trying their best to publish relevant topics that challenge the audience, while also publishing things that make money. “[T]o publish or not to publish”.
Page 455 of our textbook said “all news is bias to some degree” and I couldnt agree more when one of us is trying to prove a point its impossible to remain unbiased. People, ordinarily, create conclusions for basically everything and everybody they come to know. Not exclusively is news impacted by the essayists themselves be that as it may, as said in the digital recording, the news is likewise vigorously affected by political figures. Political figures and other higher-ups can change what goes into the news, yet like Patterson said on the live stream, there has been sway on measure of inclusion and the positive/negative substance gave in the articles.
Bias within the news is inevitable. Especially in the harsh political environment America is facing today, we as the public must be aware of the journalistic bias received through our daily news. The moral and social responsibility journalists must take into account when shaping the influence of an issue to others through their reports is becoming blurred through the lines of fake news and dishonest reporting. As stated in the Media Matters blog, “it has become increasingly likely that the news that we’re consuming on social media and television is out of touch with mainstream values and main street sensibilities.” It seems bias media is being shared more often by metropolitan news organizations rather than local news reporters. Reporting with the reliance of a local newspaper can be a dangerous game as the information the American public is gathering as a country could be wrong fact-checking, and the bias of the report could persuade people it is the truth. For example, On The Media (OTM) produced a podcast named “Too Much of a Bad Thing” with Thomas Patterson. Patterson states, “what’s happened with this media system we have and the fact that a lot of us collect information around our biases, facts can be used to advance your partisan agenda.” Could it be true journalists within the most recent generation report news biased in their political views? It is true most local news reports will be influenced during a civic election, but how do civilians begin to decipher what is the truth and what isn’t? Trying to uncover the truth leads me to the discussion of a journalist becoming a conflict of interest. The knowledge I acquired reading the Case Study on page 459 in the book “Media and Society” quotes, “Journalists should not place themselves in a situation in which they might have to report on the misdeeds of an organization or a political party to which they belong.” Unfortunately, we know all journalists can be at fault of living their healthy, civic life and forgetting their fairness of reporting at times. As we are all human, we know we make mistakes, and we all have our personal opinions. After reading and listening to conversations directed towards the biased views in American news, especially during a political election, I realize that maybe this urban, new generation of journalists knows something we don’t. That their smell of BS is more coherent due to the high fact-checking media coverage world we live in today. I think that could be the possible explanation for digital, fast reporting news with a bias point of view due to the “partisan agenda” Patterson mentioned we are all trying to meet.
– Hailee Langowski. Media and Society 101. 10/24/19
As stated in the textbook, “… all news is biased to some degree,” (pg 455). This is true because news is always written by someone and it is almost impossible to not input personal bias. Humans, by nature, develop opinions for practically everything and everyone they come to know. Not only is news influenced by the writers themselves but, as said in the podcast, the news is also heavily influenced by political figures. Political figures and other higher-ups can change what goes into the news, but like Patterson said in the podcast, there has been impact on amount of coverage and the positive/negative content provided in the articles.
From reading this blog and listening the podcast, it was very clear that journalists will play a dangerous game when it comes to reporting things and the journalist would not care if it fake or real news. Not everything in the media is true. In the OTM podcast, the video showed the clips of Donald Trump talking abut how the fake news would always be the enemy of the people and they wlll always find a way to destroy a person. Donald Trump went through the same things regarding fake news having rumor going around ruining his election as president. He made sure he banned the press from him and his staff for they cannot deal with rumors to continue being spread when it is fake news. It is extremely impossible for a human not to be bias. All people will have an opinion for something no matter what it is. When journalist talk about things in the news, it is difficult to operate without their bias. The human subconscious is not very hard when trying to hold information because they do not want to intentionally start war with Donald Trump when they are just doing their job.
Works Cited
Garfield, Bob, and Thomas E Patterson. “Too Much of a Bad Thing .” Wnyc.org, 1 June 2017, http://www.wnyc.org/story/too-much-bad-thing/.
Journalists stories are not facts anymore. They tend to add their opinions and views to it making it not “valid”. they don’t report a lot of positive news, they are just mostly negative. Even though they report what the audience wants to hear, people still choose what information is important to them.
I’d say journalist are like picky and choosy with the stories they want to put out to the public. They add things like their opinion and views on the stories which takes the actual “value” of the story away giving it less and less facts to be looked upon. It makes the stories less and less reliable. They tend to make more negative things than positive.
The news is biased. Whether we believe it or not there’s always going to be some parts that people will exaggerate just bff or the attention. According to the blog post, “The people who report, edit, produce and publish can’t help but be affected—deeply affected by the environment around them.” This is very true in my understanding, considering that nowadays many press and journalists tend to focus on the smaller outcome of a situation than the bigger picture. In cases where there’s elections, there’s focus on who’s the “bad” guy or who “cheated” and “lied” instead of being focused on who can serve the country fair and right and who cannot. Where news becomes biased is mostly in politics. As it states, “Nearly 90 percent of all internet publishing empire work in a country where Clinton won, and 75 percent of them work where she won more than by the percentage points.” This shows that journalists during this time weren’t focused on the importance of care whether she would win or not, but on the fact that the percentages of the environment were increasing due to internet publishing and points that she had received during that time. I believe anywhere you go, something or someone will be biased on the information they receive and wish to give out to others just to give themselves a voice. According to page 455, “Journalists are storytellers, not objective scientists.” comes to show that journalists are people who give out a voice of what they think the public wants to hear not what they NEED to hear. So here is where information starts to be left out, where people start to question the “fake” news, or whether or not someone is who they say they are. Sadly, people have made this statement a truth by putting all there energy and trust within one person/source that provides them with nothing more than what pleases them. News is biased everywhere and everyday. It just takes a few true deep diggers to find out the truth of they’re “truth.”
I think that bias is always going to play a role in society as long as there is news to be written. Yet, I also believe bias is more likely to occur over internet publishing and broadcasting, rather than newspaper publishing. With the graph above showing that internet publishing is becoming more popular, I believe it is more likely for bias and other fake news to be out there in the world. As stated by Dean Banquet and Bill Keller, on page 455 of the textbook, “… the risks of publishing. There is no magic formula…. We make our best judgment.” I feel like by saying this statement, they’re saying that regardless of what they say or publish, it will always be interpreted one way or the other by the audience. There will always be someone who feels a bias towards a subject. For example, Bob Garfield and Thomas E. Patterson discussed the 2016 Presidential election between President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. There was plenty of bias going around the press, who had been covering this election. No matter what the presidential candidates did, depending on your opinion towards them, there were plenty of biased Americans. Bias will always be a topic that plagues news, especially as internet publishing and journalism grows.
Like the Podcast said, “Donald Trump, compared to what’s normal as President, received three times as much coverage (by the media).” and I believe this plays a big part as to why he feels so attacked. Three times as much media coverage means three times as many different opinionated stories whether they be for or against Trump.
It is impossible as humans not to be biased. We all must have an opinion of something, that is to say an inner dialogue about what you think about a certain subject, and I’d like to argue that it’s near impossible for Journalists to operate without their biases, as their opinion is engrained, and the human subconscious can easily slip when trying to withhold information, but that doesn’t mean the media is necessarily intentionally at war with Trump, To pull from the case study on pg. 455, “…Bias charges usually emanate from politicians who dislike negative (but generally true) stories about them.”
While reading the Media Matters Blog and my textbook and listening to the podcast, I found the reoccurring theme that it is almost impossible to not be biased one way or another for any given topic. According to the case study Bias in the News, “journalists are primarily storytellers and not objective scientists,” (page 455) meaning that journalists will find a way to tell a story with emotion and sometimes bias, not just give the straight facts. Editors will also choose one story to print over another based on which story they think will bring more viewers to their company. Bias is a very present issue especially in politics. President Trump recently stated that “no president in the United States has ever been treated as unfairly as I have been,” (Too Much of a Bad Thing). Fake news and bias are able to thrive in modern times because “the liberal, coastal, elite journalist is becoming the norm when it comes to national media coverage, and that is a problem for the future of the industry,” (Media Matters Blog) because of the lack of trust.
After reading the case study, this blog and listening to the podcast it is clear that journalists play a dangerous side when it comes to reporting. Whether the news is fake or real, it has become a “thing” for the press to be blamed for negative news that comes out. In the OTM podcast it shows a clip of Donald Trump saying, “I called fake news the enemy of the people and they are, the enemy of the people.”Now during the election many things came out against Donald Trump in order to ruin his running for president and the press was to blame. Donald Trump went as far to ban press from reaching him or his staff due to the information the continued to be spread and the information he referred to as “fake news”. It is clear that people are biased and with a platform to share opinions on, they know they can be influential. Also according to the case study, “Bias in the News”,Politicians seeking to divert attention away from their flaws often try to score points with voters by “blaming” the media for something—usually for bias.” proving the blame towards journalists and press for the news they put out or bias they share. After reading these it can show the “bubble” that journalists are stuck in because they are put in the position to share news even though they probably have their own personal bias.
Bias is a nasty thing when it comes to journalism. It can lead to the popularization of negativity towards a certain person, an influx of possibly fake news being published, and limitations towards what’s going on in the world.
As discussed in the On the Media podcast, media that has popularized bias can cause an overwhelming amount of news to come out about that person. As stated by Thomas Patterson, one of the co-hosts of the podcast, “Compared to what’s normal for a president, he got three times as much coverage.” (Patterson) This partnered with the later statistic stated in the podcast as well that, “coverage of the first 100 days broke 80% negative to 20% positive.” Can allow us to assume and understand that popularized negative bias in the media sells, otherwise there would be no other reason for such a statistic to exist. Negative bias towards Trump was so popularized that nearly every news media went for that angle.
As discussed in the book there is also a considerable amount of bias as to what can be published in newspapers as well. From the small case study in our text, we receive the quote, “How must editors weigh such decisions when national security bumps up against citizens’ need for information?” (Campbell, R., Martin, C. and Fabos, B.). This goes into what will be considered bias. Some things have to be cut or possibly postponed for a while due to production time or possibly the production budget. But it all comes down to bias when you have the quote from the same text that states, “… each of us… has had the experience of withholding or delaying articles when the administration convinces us that the risk of publication outweighed the benefits…” (Campbell, R., Martin, C. and Fabos, B.) There are things that we have to decide and because of that we as journalists are stuck in a bubble of bias depending on the department that we work for.
After reading the case study in the textbook it is clearly shown that journalist struggles to find the line between what they can publish and what crosses the line. The journalist is forced to make the call on their better judgment and in some cases, their work is not published due to the administration convincing that it is against their better judgment(Campbell, Martin, Fabos pg 455). In the OTM Podcast, they talked about the amount of negative news and how the public views affect how it is perceived. The strong public figures, like our presidents, are the ones who heavily influence the amount of negative news in out there (Thomas E. Patterson – OTM Podcast). In MR. Ebersole’s Media Matters Blog, talks about the essays that help support the bubble that the journalist lives and works in. He gives the example that the journalist are influenced by the place they live in, like major cities. In these cities, they are more likely to have a liberal point of view. They carry their views wherever they go even in their journalism.
There has always been some difficulty in deciphering which news sites have biased opinions, but some are very obvious. Take CNN for example, whenever something Trump related breaks the news, CNN is almost always making it into something negative about it. It really just comes down to the type of content they release and the tone of it. But it seems as though the media has targeted Trump, as “The coverage of the first 100 days broke 80% negative to 20% positive. (Patterson)” Over 80% of Trump’s coverage of his first 100 days were negative in tone. But before we say that the journalists that are negative about him are just acting out of bias, you have to look at the things that he has done, and the peoples opinion first. For example, Trump received backlash for ordering the military out of Syria; Something that his military advisers were very much against. Removing the U.S. from the global environmental policies designed to help protect the planet was one of the main catalysts.
Unfortunately, most of the population believes that journalists are writing their stories with bias in play, but it is mainly them confusing bias with freedom of speech.
There is always going to be bias in the media because everyone always has a different point of view. This is a good thing for our freedom and journalism and because it allows everyone to have their own voice, whether the outcome is good or bad. Like the article stated,” what is more integral to liberty than the freedom of an independent press”. This basically explains how the voice of the press allows the government to not completely control the people since we will always have a platform to expose any wrongdoings in society or our everyday lives. President Trump has made a few attempts to demoralize the American people from the press by claiming that they spread fake news. This was his attempt to destroy the credibility of the publications that he didn’t agree with, but due to our protected American freedoms the publications can spread whatever they would like and it is always up to the reader on how they choose to interpret that data. Overall bias in the media allows our American freedoms to always stay protected, since we will always have a voice fighting for us.
Biases are a hard thing to get around. We Develop them in our everyday lives due to our environment and experiences. Journalist have to try their best to master the art of non biases news. It is a difficult because of perspective, each party and source will see something different so there cant be a such thing as 100 percent true news. So therefore the news outputs will always be seen to lead more towards one side. We seem to be drawn more to the bad news so that is journalist write about. Bias are always going to be there trying your best to play devils advocate is the important part of journalism in the news.
In the article, it is mentioned that journalists are out of touch. I do not think this is the case. That is because of, as shown in the photo, more people are going to the internet to get their news as opposed to getting it from a newspaper. In the podcast I couldn’t really hear anything about this topic.
During the podcast, “Too Much of a Bad Thing,” textbook and the article, “The News Media Bubble” on Media Matters blog we are able to learn collectively how bias is affecting our news we receive. This situation is unfortunate because we are unable to learn unbiased news and are left with what others biased opinions are- which is fake news. In the podcast, “Too Much of a Bad Thing,” on New York public radio they state, “journalistic instinct is to report on bad weather, not good weather,” which only shows us one side to everything. Of course there’s always going to be bad, but within bad there is always some good, but since this is not the more “popular” story, it will not make it to the headlines- instead it will be lucky if it makes it anywhere within the news. Within these biased stories we are unable to learn the real truth within this news, which then sways our normal judgement as well. Just like it said in the podcast, “ coverage of muslims… 80% is negative,” which then as a public has swayed our judgment so much that when most view muslims- they automatically are viewed negatively by the public. Then in our textbook it says, “most frequent ethical dilemmas encountered…involve intentional deception, privacy invasions, and conflicts of interest,” which does show how bias can affect our most pertinent thoughts/ ideas. This issue of biased news affects political views, beliefs and ideas can affect our nation negatively if we are unable to uncover the real news with more biased journalists/reporters, thus showing the importance in receiving reliable unbiased news.
After reviewing each of the three sources, it cannot be denied that journalists are inherently biased. Whether they know it or not, personal beliefs make it difficult to push a bias to the side for the greater good of the story being told. It may not be quite as severe as someone like President Trump saying that no one “has been treated worse or more unfairly” than him by the media, who he believes to lean far too liberally (Patterson, Thomas E., 2017). Trump seems to skew the truth, weaving the tale as if no conservatives disagree with him or his methods either. However, this does not mean that the left wing leanings do not exist in journalism at all. In fact, recent trends suggest journalists are indeed becoming more liberal and out of touch, but with their audiences in general, not just in regard to the president (Ebersole, Samuel, 2017) . While that may be the case, news outlets all around the nation lean further one way or the other anyway, and it simply depends on local events or traditions of each market. Everybody has their own personal views, but looking through multiple perspectives can shine a light on the closest thing to the truth as can be found. Whether someone is biased in favor of the left or right, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, the bottom line is that every person should hear a story from both sides, then decide what is real to them.
-Miguel Rodriguez
In reading the Bias in the News from my textbook, listening to the podcast, and the Media Matters reading, I have learned three main things, one I learned from Media Matters, and that is that we are allowing our “liberal coastal, elite journalists” to become a norm which leads to fake news being accepted in our society. “The press I think is making a mistake that of made during the election focusing too much on the candidates and not paying a lot of attention to what was going on out in the country. I do think the success or lack of success of this presidency is going to rest largely on how the American public responds to it. It’s a big story and its been a largely uncovered story.” (Thomas E. Patterson – OTM Podcast). With this being brought up, it brings up the topic of unbiased news being published, towards the president. Lastly, the third thing I learned was from a case study titled Bias in the News. “However, since journalists are primarly storytellers and not objective sceintits, searching for liberal or conservative bias should not be the main focus of our media criticism.” (455) Our jouralnism has become one big laughing stock during this turn of the century. News is becoming more bias everyday. Eventually no one will know the truth because “fake news” is becoming the newest trend.
Tyler*Speller
Representing and describing the reality has always been a difficult task. Journalists can try to do that as long as they want, but at the end of the day, they are still humans and not machines, so it’s almost impossible to not have a personal idea about a subject and not being influenced by that. Describing reality in a objective way, without bias is very difficult “news after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science” (Case study PG 455). Another important aspect is that, as said in the book, “editors chose certain events and ignore others”, so what we read sometimes might not be the absolute truth, because we ignore some aspects of a phenomenon. The problem nowadays is that the majority of the journalist are predominantly located in liberal coastal cities and the environment plays a big role in influencing their views. We can see that this is a concrete problem from the podcast, where Donald Trump says “the level of dishonesty is out of control” and “nobody has ever been treated more unfairly than me”. We have to admit that before the presidential election the news coverage on Donald Trump was almost always negative, probably because journalists working for the press were mainly focused on liberal or moderate views, while Trump is republican and mostly “conservative”.
Trump has become president though, and nobody expected that. In fact people weren’t ready because “the press made the mistake of concentrating too much on the candidates, without considering what was going on in the country” (podcast).
All those news, preceding Trump’s election were compromised by a liberal bias that under reported the positive but over reported the negative aspects of the presidential figure. So as we can see, almost every journalist and publishing press has some sort of view, that represent a “biased” reality, so we can say that news must also be interpreted and not just accepted as the absolute truth.
While reading the blog and listening to the broad cast, I found out that there is so much information that we don’t really pay attention to when we hear the news or read other sources. As much as news and journalism try to put away their bias opinion aside, they can’t help it. They tend to write what they feel about a subject, problem, person, or idea that comes within them. It is true that journalism and news should be giving the exact information out and try not to change it so that they can get more consumers to read it. It’s hard to find news that aren’t being bias or tweaking the information up. Nowadays, all people care about is having a large audience, followers, or views on something. They tend to give out false information, bias information, or just adding information to make something worse than it already is. In the prodcast To Much of a Bad Thing by On the Media, President Trump says “the news in the enemy of the people” I do believe this because news always tends to hype people up with the level of dishonesty. This could go both ways as well. We never know who is telling the truth. The prodcast also metions a summury on the prodcastr and mentions “the press has long has a tendency to focus on negative news over positive news”(2017). The media and news should give information carefully so people don’t get misinformed and start believing what the media and news say, when it could be false or added on information that could not be true. According to Media and Culture an Introduction to Mass Communication “all news is biased to some degree. News is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science” (Campbell, Martin, Fabos, pg. 455). News select the information that are going to have people talking, and make it bigger than what it already is. As a result to this, news, journalism, and other source of reporters should be more carefully and honest with the information that is being put out.
When it comes to news media, consumers and journalists all have biased opinions about what they would prefer to see, watch, and read. Everyone has a confirmation bias that we all follow. A very hot topic is politics, this is one thing that all people have strict ideals about. Politics and media go hand in hand, the second anything happens it is being reported. The issue comes from there being too many different view points and opinions about the issues being reported on. It is mentioned that most journalists are young, urban, liberal etc. Opinions that come from journalists of that demographic will only reach other people of the same population. While older generations see these differing opinions on Facebook and probably deem it fake news. According to Media & Culture, politicians often blame the media in hopes it would distract and gain more voters (Campbell, Martin, Fabos, p.455). In the Too Much of a Bad Thing podcast by On The Media, it is described how our president Donald Trump did just this. There was an audio clip of a speech by Trump where he referred to fake news as “the enemy of the people.” He then continued to talk about how the media has treated him saying “no politician in history … has been treated worse or more unfairly” (2017). The main topic of the podcast was about how news is usually focused on negative topics. While there are many different opposing viewpoints in journalism and news media, the blame should not be put on the journalists or reporters. They are reporting what they believe is right according to their morals and standards. If other people do not like what they have to say, they should simply continue to look for their confirmation bias where their biased opinion is being supported.
I believe most news source are biased not matter how hard journalist try to put they opinions aside. People are entitled to their feelings and are going to react to the works they produced regardless if that the reaction they wanted to get. In many cases that is used to medias advantage, telling people what they want to hear in order to produce profits. According to the podcast “Compared to what’s normal for a president, he got three times as much coverage. So the press can’t seem to get enough of Donald Trump, even though Donald Trump, for his part, certainly goes after the press at every opportunity” (Thomas E. Patterson – OTM Podcast). I certainty agree with this statement. Donald Trump created such a uproar in the media good and bad depending on location.
As I am from a small more conservative town I have heard this same theory before. A lot of times what we hear from the mainstream media affects us or are daily lives in no way at all. Much of the news that the mainstream media portrays is “big” news of celebrities or other high-profile people. We seem to get less and less local news and hear about what is going on in a particular community or a region in general. However, people do not just have to rely on what the media is saying they can look into information for themselves and find out what is going on in their area and what may be important to them. In my opinion journalism should be reporting the facts and facts only. I think journalists should stray away from giving an indication of their political views. This almost makes them a little more reliable if you know you are just going to get the facts from them not necessarily what they think.
It is human nature to show bias in no matter what you do, and in the case of journalism, ones biases will always show. It is the medias job to attempt to try to separate themselves from that bias, and report the news as fairly as possible. It seems in recent times there has been less and less willingness for journalist to separate themselves from their biases, and the journalist are more likely to deny their bias. In the OTM podcast Thomas E. Patterson states “The press is too critical. Under reporting the positive elements, over reporting the negative.” The press seems to have an overwhelming left leaning bias, which can discourage conservative republicans from trusting the news reported, referring to the textbook “[A] 2012 Pew Research Center study reported that 37 percent of Americans see “a great deal of political bias” in the news—up from 31 percent in 2000 and 25 percent back in 1989. In terms of political party affiliation, 49 percent of Republicans in this survey reported “A great deal” of bias, while only 32 percent of Democrats and 35 percent of Independents reported high levels of political bias.” (455). If this problem is going to be fixed than the media needs to own up to their bias and find a way to not just report in condensed left leaning areas, and maybe outsource to small rural towns, where there is differing views and opinions.
In our society today the news that we recieve has a good chance of being biased towards one political side. Also as we saw in the OTM video they spoke about how the news also tends to stick with only telling people about the negative stuff and stays away from the positive stuff. The news is continuing to to become like this with the fake news and I believe will continue because the people in our society for the most part believes it. Everyone get their news from Facebook now a days but on their feeds they are only getting news that is biased to them. When I say this I mean it will talk high and heavy for one political side but will slam the other. The two best examples of these is CNN and Fox. I feel that how things are going right now that fake and biased news will continue to be a problem in our society.
we can all agree that all news are biased . journalist are selective with their stories they add their opinions and views to their stories that doesn’t make the stories facts anymore. they kind of report more negative and less positive news .I mean anyone who reports has a biased opinion they would report new that would keep their audience talking. even though they report what the audience want to hear everyone has a selective hearing they pick what they think is important for them . in the case of Donald Trump he is in kind of a war with the media so they would also report any news about him to look bad in front of their audience.
I believe that there is always bias in the news and part of it is the medias fault and part of it is society in general. The case study states that the goal now days should be for journalist to try and create this balance, specifically meaning to interview both left and right side candidates. I agree with Thomas E. Patterson in the podcast that part of the negative coverage that Donald Trump gets is usually due to the fact that a majority of his coverage is him talking and he’s the number one voice in all of his coverage not other people. I believe this is also why the media is so obsessed with Donald Trump because he’s a person who loves to talk a lot and the media sees there opportunity to pick everything he says apart. News will never be able to complete a true balance and our countries view on certain topics is due to certain biases that will always be predominant in our society.
It is impossible to separate emotion from your choices or your perception of things. News is and will continue to be biased. Now more than ever, it is becoming harmful to everyone and can leading to incorrect views. In the text book it states, “Let’s acknowledge upfront that all news is biased to some degree.” (455) This is a fact and people who say otherwise are ignorant. Today, media, for the most part, focuses too much on the bad as well as caring about people’s feelings too much. I understand how Donald Trump thinks he’s constantly being “attacked” but I can also see how journalists feel “attacked” as well. The news being reported these days is so irrelevant and does not successfully inform the audience about anything happening in the government. As a result, Americans are very uneducated on politics and current events. In the textbook it also states, “In a 2014 Pew study, 37% of those interviewed reported distrusting Fox News.” Fake news is a serious issue but very hard to stop. We can no longer decipher between what is fact and what is fake. The media is turning into a big joke, especially with the help of Trump.
I believe there is a definite bias in news today. In the case study it states that, politicians usually stray away from their flaws by blaming the media. It also states that “all news is biased.” Some people may not agree with that, but I stand by this statement. Politicians can have a huge impact on news reporters and people who watch the news at home. People at home are listening to different political opinions everyday. Listening to the OTM podcast, I agree with Shorenstein Center’s Thomas E. Patterson, we have all observed how Donald Trump rode the waves of division, dislike for Muslims, American uncertainty and distrust of the media. Which explains my first point of politicians blaming media to get away from flaws. It’s impossible to avoid “bias news.”
Obviously Journalism from one way or another, is biased. From the outside looking in seeing FOX news and CNN and ABC news just goes to show there is more than one station literally willing to die for viewership and will do anything for such view or subscriptions. News articles will bend phrases or words to “create negative perceptions” about crime, racial issues, and politics alike. Republicans statistically views journalism as more bias. Donald Trump was reported to have the biggest showing of negative journalism in decades. Journalists seem to “see themselves as the opposition” from presidential authority. This may create a one sided “bias” of the story whether calling down presidential nominees, or opponents. I feel that journalism need to reach back to its roots for justice and the “actual” real story. Not just giving a negative perception of one group or another to gain advantage but using true, real information to adapt and resolve real issues going on i our life’s today.
I believe that all news is in some way biased, because publishing is biased in the way that people’s opinions choose what is and what is not published. In the video Donald Trump said “I called the fake news the enemy of the people”, although I think his opinion is mostly questionable, I do agree with this, I think that fake news has a detrimental effect on our society. News is biased because it tries to interest the audience so it is exaggerated or twisted in a way that makes it more interesting. Our textbook states that “all news is biased to some degree. News is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science.” (pg 455), I completely agree with this, if news was 100% factual it would be boring to read, it wouldn’t interest readers and so this is why news is exaggerated for effect. Take political news for example; overtime there is an election you tend to hear about bad things the candidates have done in the past rather than their positive influences on society and this is because the bad things are more interesting to hear about. Thomas E. Patterson stated that ” the press is too critical. Under reporting the positive developments and over reporting the negative” and this reinstates the previous idea. Although the media is biased, I think society is some of the problem, we are naive in believing fake news and are biased in our own opinions and perhaps that is some of the problem.
News is absolutely biased in one form or another. Donald Trump states “I called the fake news the enemy of the people and they are.” This is obviously true. If you don’t believe me then just turn on the tv. Flip between channels like CNN or Fox News and you’ll see that they all have some sort of bias.
Thomas E. Patterson said during his interview in the On the Media blog, that “Every time someone runs for office, you hear way more about the bad than the good.” The more you think about it the more thoughts come into your head which back up the statement.
Even though this podcast might make you mad at journalists, there really isn’t a way for them to be unbiased and that’s why it is such an issue. No matter the story they tell, journalists will always be sort of bias. Some more than others. It’s just the world we live in.
In the news world, a lot of information is made out to not be what truly is. Fake news is biasing the world about anything that is being talked about amongst the audience. It is being biased because the news is trying to fit into the audiences opinions and then the audience choose whether or not to believe what they read and tell others what’s wrong and what’s right, based on their views. The whole community amongst the news world is opinionated so much to where everyone believes either one thing or nothing. On the OTM podcast, Bob stated, “Anything you do to try and address those perceptions of bias takes you down that slippery slope of force balance and pulling punches and bending over backwards. I would say let the chips fall where they may.” Thompson Patterson also stared, “ I do think the press is too critical. Under reporting the positive developments and over reporting the negative. What’s interesting is that there have been studies that Americans are asked what’s the trend in crime and what’s the trend in employment and what’s the trend in inflation. Their opinions are that it’s worse than it actually is.” In the book, media and culture by Campbell, Martin, and Fabos, they state that “However, since journalists are primarily storytellers and not objective scientists, searching for liberal or conservative bias should not be the main focus of our media criticism.” As audience, we should try and not bias the news and each other as much as we currently are.
Humans cannot help that we all perceive events differently. Though there are some sources that seem to flat out lie because they anticipate a bigger reaction from their audience, others that are deemed as “fake news,” simply receive this title because they do not agree with other people’s views. According to the OTM podcast, “If you look at all presidential nominees since Reagan and their coverage during the general election, Democratic and Republican, all but Barack Obama in 2008 received, on balance, negative coverage. So, you know, that’s the press in its, in its usual mode. They’re on the attack. They’re looking for the critical story, things that go bad, rather than things that go good. And it’s not just about presidents, it’s also about Congress. That erodes public trust. You know, they certainly let us down if they don’t blow the whistle when things go wrong. On the other hand, to tell us when things are going right, I think that’s an important part of their responsibility, as well.” It is journalists’ job to expose when the truth of events, especially when it involves someone in power. They focus on negative aspect because it is more attractive to our minds. Page 455 of textbook states that, “fully critiquing news stories must depend , then, on whether they are fair, represent an issues’s complexity, provide verification and documentation, represent multiple views, and serve the open marketplace of ideas promoted by democracy.” Our entire democracy is dependent on journalist’s stories. There is little control over being unbiased because all of us hold a biased lens while perceiving any information. It is the responsibility of each individual to not allow a story to affect their judgment but rather they need to allow their own biases to take effect on how they analyze a story.
I agree with our textbook that “…all news is biased to some degree. News is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science.” (455) and after our newspaper module in class it makes sense that as local newspapers and local reporting are replaced by national news organizations this will increase, especially in rural communities and less populated states. My hometown is an extremely small farming community in Northern California. Our local politicians and a significant portion of the community are conservative Trump supporters, even though California as a whole is consistently a blue state; and the national news rarely reflects the feelings and beliefs of my neighbors. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard “old timers” talking about how liberal and biased the news is. I have to disagree with them. In my opinion, Trump has receive more negative coverage than previous presidents because of his negative behavior and actions; he makes it easy for the press to be critical of him. I also agree with Thomas E. Patterson that “…the press is too critical, underreporting the positive developments, over-reporting the negative” (OTM 2017). Sensationalism, tragedy, drama, and blaming others is what gets ratings and what keeps people interested. Sure we all like a feel good story now and then, but watching the news is not a feel good activity in my opinion.
Fake news is all around us and is it going to stop in the near future? Probably not because it always will have biased sides so people will be content with the news. For example, Democrats do not want to hear that Trump is doing good. All that is wanting to be heard is that he is doing badly and he is messing things up. In the podcast, Trump stated, “Look at the way I’ve been treated lately, especially by the media. No politician in history – and I say this with great surety – has been treated worse or more unfairly.” This could be due to the fact that these reporters are stating bad things about Trump because it gets them views and more attention. It is hard to know what to believe anymore because of how much fake news is used. Your first reaction when you see something that you are against and there is something negative about it, you automatically believe it. I know for sure I have done that multiple times but after reading the case study in the book, which stated, “News, after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science.” I now know to maybe rethink what I am being told and to ask if this is actually credible. It is almost always biased which starts the arguments and makes people be on specific sides. I like to think that this applies to Biology and when Darwin stated, “Survival of the Fittest,” because thats essentially what it is. All of these news channels are trying to be the most successful so if that means they have to state fake news, then thats what must be done.
After looking at all of this information, I must honestly say my opinion on the mass media in our society has changed quite a bit. Before reading and listening to this information I would have agreed considered my self apart of the ” 37 percent of Americans” (455) who “see a great deal of political bias in the news”(455). But one quote in the case study changed my mind when they said “Let’s acknowledge up front that all news is biased to some degree. News, after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science.” (p.455). It was at this point I realized that news somewhat has to be bias is some direction, otherwise how do you dictate what kind of content goes out? The answer to this question is unknown, but one thing for sure is that Americans need truth. In the podcast when they played the soundbite of President Trump saying; ” A few days ago, I called the fake news the “enemy of the people,” and they are. They are the enemy of the people.” (Too Much of a Bad Thing), for once, I agreed with the man. I don’t really consider my self to have a very strong political opinion in either direction, but one thing I know for sure is that I want the truth. But this Media matters blog made a great point, who’s truth are you going to listen to? Whether its the right, the left, the middle, or maybe even your own outside of all of it, at this point in our society, it is all in the eye of the beholder.
IN the OTM podcast the two men state, “When a president gets coverage it;s usually other people talking but in Trump’s case about two thirds of the time the voice you here is that of Donald Trump. That is true in the campaign to by the way. You look at Hillary Clintions on the other hand, the domaniant voice was Donald Trump.” The men in the podcast are giving examples where Doanld shouldn’t blame fake news, becuase majoirty of the time they are quoting him directly. With this the fake news side can shine through with only using a half quote of Trumps or possible filling in words. That is the other side of the news they tell half truths or what they can get veiws on.
Through reviewing this blog post, this statement stuck out to me, “Journalists have not always been so out of touch with the audience that they serve. The failure of local and regional newspapers is a significant contributing factor. ” says Samuel Ebersole. This shows why journalism has changed so much becuase they exculde the truth and persoanl opinons to please the directed audience.
In this day and age of fake news and media bias, my hope is that our sources for news and the avenues that are used as vehicles to deliver the news “messages”, remain ones that are not biased.
As our textbook, Media and Culture states, “Fully critiquing news stories must depend , then, on whether they are fair, represent an issues’s complexity, provide verification and documentation, represent multiple views, and serve the open marketplace of ideas promoted by democracy” (pg.455).
As stated in the podcast Too Much of a Bad Thing, “I do think the press is too critical, under reporting the positive developments, over reporting the negative…” I believe this is because, like most enterprises in this country, the news media is a business. The number one priority of a business is to turn a profit. Even the news business.
Henceforth, while news media should be focused on unbiased coverage of any topic from multiple points of view, they will focus on what sells. And what sells, is not always what is true and unbiased.
We as the consumers of media need to be more selective and demand fair and unbiased news coverage. Otherwise, the trend will continue.
“37 percent of Americans see a great deal of potential bias in the media” (Media and Culture, pg 455) but yet all we continue to hear about is the media and how one sided every story told it. It’s crazy because whenever we speak on how we feel, someone always has to come back around and tell us why we are wrong for feeling a certain way. If this is a free country then why do we feel so entitled to make sure that people know our opinions but when they tell us theirs we can’t stay civil we always need to try and persuade them to think like we do.
Trump is constantly attacking media for being biased, however the fact that OTM podcast states “Trump’s level of dishonesty is out of control leads me to believe he is just trying to take the spotlight off himself. I truly agree his is very dishonest in many areas. For instance, “The Wall” being funded by Mexico was a blatant lie. He is now trying to go after Congress for funding. So why keep placing the blame about being biased or lying where it belongs. According to the Media and Society book, “Since the late 1960’s, the public perception has been that mainstream media operates mostly with a liberal bias.” Now if this is public perception, who does Trump think he’s fooling. Mainstream media is in search of progress so that must not be in his agenda.
In today’s chaos, it seems inevitable that we would be discussing bias towards media or that journalist and politicians are biased against each other. What is yin without yang? You must have both sides of an issue to have an issue or there would be no bias in groups, adding that reporting on all sides is most beneficial when you are creating a potential story as a journalist. It helps you create a clearer and more defined focus when you decide how to articulate your story which will eventually be viewed by millions of people. There are minuscule choices we must make as journalists and reporters, having a positive overall moral compass and formulating your story with the discourse of the information in hindsight.
“New, after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science. Editors choose certain events to cover and ignore others” pg.455 (media & culture)
This phase of reporting during the discourse of events is the most important and more critical when it comes to thinking and determining what story to place into the public. That said humans are selfish in nature indeed but we can also be loyal and very responsible. It is okay to be selfish most of the time and for most decision-making processes except when it comes to the ‘Art of News Making’. A quote I heard that will forever be stuck in my head is, “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life,” said by Oscar Wilde. This profound way of thinking is a major truth in life as well as in the mere fact that we live our daily lives shaping and molding ourselves from people and things we have respect for, idols, public figures, religions, cultures, as well as businesses, and companies. In the same way we process news information we also process information subconsciously and reflect it in our thoughts, feelings, and actions.
“What is overly negative and what is just reporting what you’re seeing?” (OTM Podcast)
Discussed in the OTM Podcast, Trump’s presidential term in the first 100 days was reported in the media as being 80 percent negative spotlight and 20 percent positive news coverage. His campaign to say the least right now is very effective in generating views and attracting followers, also adding his presidency demonstrates uncharted territory as a society. Creating uncertainty, good or bad fundamentally the role of journalists involved in media relations is to observe events, network, and research and interview. It is undoubtedly true that all good coverage is good coverage, what isn’t true is all bad coverage is bad coverage. Corresponding to the quote from the OTM Podcast bad isn’t all bad coverage because some negativity is needed and there must be a balance of bad news coverage to good news coverage. This balance is found in each journalist’s ability to write stories in a manner that promotes growth in the public as well as in urban centers and on a national scale that curtails life’s events and attempts to provide beneficial news for the public, not just anything that will put more money in their pockets. Although this outcome is nearly impossible due to our human selfishness, money problems, and greed capabilities, the shear individuals’ effort in translating beneficial news for the public will create a cultural change that helps societies grow. Growing is key as well as in life, the balance of life is then found in the positive resonating process of coverage for public and societies by being objective of events as they happen and aim to fill the purpose of providing information that promotes growth to the community as well as society. This news can’t always be positive for societies.
With the current president Donald Trump constantly accusing news stations of being fake it is a hot topic in todays society. America is becoming less and less trustful of todays news sources “37 percent of Americans see a great deal of potential bias in the media” (Media and culture book)Which may not seem to be a large amount but when you think about the size of the population it is a very large portion. I think that there was a change in my generation, more and more information has become accessible than the generation before mine. Allowing people to do their own research and form their own opinions of there beliefs instead of taking the news word for it as we saw in past generations. The media needs to get ahold of the situation before this percentage reaches half and they become the laughing stock of television.
-Jacob Rivera
Everything that is reported through the news and media expresses some sort of bias based on that source’s demographics. As it is mentioned in this article as well as the On The Media: Too Much of a Bad Thing podcast and the “Bias in the News” case study, news is all bias to some degree and it tends to focus on the negative stories more often than not because of the controversial buy-in that those stories receive. As the case study states, “news, after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science,” (p. 455 Media & Culture), which means, like the other two sources imply, news stories and journalists will be directly affected by their beliefs and what they are exposed to in their own societies and communities. The issue discussed in the podcast is not so much an issue of “fake news” and hatred towards Donald Trump, but rather it is an issue of there being a lack of ideological diversity in the media. For example, this article includes a quote that reports that most internet publishing employees work in areas where Clinton won, therefore most news articles would reflect a bias against Trump and his political and personal ideologies that he is constantly expressing.
One thing that comes to mind when thinking about bias’ and politics. In particular the presidential election of 2017 in the U.S. is this, “the press is too critical, underreporting the positive developments and over reporting the negative” (Thomas E. Patterson, On the Media). This way of thinking stands out because primarily all that was heard was Donald Trump and his perspective on “fake news” or Hilary and the issues that involved her. Not much information was really given on the issues going on around the world and country. The idea that “it has becoming increasingly likely that the news that we’re consuming on social media and television is out of touch with mainstream values and main street sensibilities” (Samuel Ebersole), is true. With the media the focus was not on what we needed to be hearing but what we wanted, kind of like a show. Specifically when it came to “blaming the media for something” and the idea of “fake news” with Donald Trump. It kind of all just gave recognition to things that were not necessary or irrelevant to the election.
In today’s world, the large quantity of biased news in circulation has caused inadequate and skewed information to circulate. As our book states, there is a large percentage (37%) of Americans who believe that there’s a growing amount of political bias in the news that we receive through the media. With multiple large corporations backing up different news stations, it’s easy to see how they may have a growing influence on what their investments portray. Ultimately, people pay for the news that they want to be shown, and the media will do what they need to do in order to gain ratings. We can see this trend when we look at how Donald Trump’s ratings (shown in “Too Much of a Bad Thing”) appeared in relation to the amount of negative news about him in society after his election. Trends follow trends.
I do agree with the statement that journalists can get lost in their own bubble, and be out of touch with what the rest of the country is really thinking. Public perception since the late 1960’s has been that the mainstream news has a liberal bias (Media and Culture, p. 455). So the idea that journalists are liberal and create fake news/biased news is not a brand new phenomenon. It’s also interesting to note that whatever party is in office, people are more likely to believe that the news is biased in the less dominant party’s favor (OTM Podcast). This is partly influenced by the idea that the news reports far more on negatives than positives (OTM Podcast). They want to tell the stories with the most drama and conflict, because those are what get readers interested. Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann’s Spiral of Silence comes into play here, where negative and sensational stories are the ones being reported on, so positive developments are ignored and fall into the spiral of silence. This is part of why conservatives don’t trust the news right now and call it fake, because liberals are reporting on the negative sides of the Trump administration, and anything positive that happens falls to the side and becomes silenced.
With there being so much fake new and bias in today’s media it becomes hard to discern what is accurate and what is false Whether the story lies within sports, everyday concerns, or politics “editors choose certain events to cover and ignore others; reporters choose particular words or images to use and reject others (Bias in the News, 455).” So even certain information is left out that could possibly expose a different side to the story we are presented with a outstanding bises I personally feel that Donald Trump initiates fake news and biases directed towards him since he “blamed the nations problems and his own offences and blunders on perpetrators ranging from crooked Hillary” I see trump personally going after the media
Being biased is a big arguement in today’s society. “37 percent of Americans see a great deal of potential bias in the media” (Media and Culture, pg 455) but it does always seem to be a lot more than just 37 percent. I mean do not get me wrong that is a pretty big percent. Americans get offended when people do not agree with them or like their beliefs. A lot of people can not get past this and end up believing what they are being told. If Americans believe that we can be free to what we believe and think, then we need to have respect for what the other side of our beliefs believe in and accept their choices. Just be aware that people are different than you are.
Its very easy to forget that the new form is digital currency is not bit coin, it isnt the dollar, it really is not money, its views! at the root of almost every journalist, myself included is a working class citizen. you work to earn a living. The main thing that drives the cash flow is the overall relationship with the general public and the ability to reach and inform the general public on news stories around the world, when you tie in money and the responsibility of educating the general public on news, things can get a little dicey, all of these things lead to an inherent form of a bias that a majority of journalist have.
Now because of the fact that this bias exists does not mean that we as a journalist are “stuck in a bubble” A bubble is to micro of a world. As a journalist we are responsible for not only captivating and attracting an audience but also telling a story that carries both sides. “New, after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective sciense. Editors choose certain events to to cover and ignore others” pg.455 (media & culture)
according to the book “most research shows that people support news media outlets that seem to affirm their existing values and political leanings” Donald trump, for the most part, has made it easier to have a bias against him as an individual. He has said some questionable things while also enacting/ advocating for some of the most surprising political reforms, so the bigger the move the bigger the lens. Its very hard to differentiate between “what is overly negative and what is just reporting what you’re seeing?” (To much of a bad thing: Bof Garfield.)
Overall i think its a very interesting and pressing time for journalism and politics. journalism is inherently bias or carries a bias against something. especially when it is something political, because politics is the choice between what is deemed right and what is deemed wrong by the masses.
I believe all media has a bias of some sort,leaning towards a political agenda or whatnot. “Let’s acknowledge up front that all news is biased in some degree.” (pg. 455 Media & Culture) The act of selective reporting is a bias. I understand the human imperfection that could sway the bias to one agenda or another, however journalists should be completely unbiased, and only present the facts and not present them in a way to persuade you towards a political agenda. The media recently showed bias towards the election of our president, President Donald Trump. IN a public speech President Trump said, “Look at the way I’ve been treated lately, especially by the media. No politician in history – and I say this with great surety – has been treated worse or more unfairly.” Whatever your political view is, it has been proven true as, according to OTM, “BOB GARFIELD: It’s likely no other president has so blamed the messenger for his own travails, but if we’re just talking about the sheer negativity of Trump’s coverage, well, that he got exactly right.
THOMAS E. PATTERSON: The coverage of the first 100 days broke 80% negative to 20% positive.” The media was biased toward President Trump and his speaking up on the matter, and Thomas Patterson also said, “I do think the success or lack of success of this presidency is going to rest largely on how the American public responds to it. It’s a big story and it’s been a largely uncovered story.” The media is taking a harsh stand against President Trump, to which no other president has had that much negative criticism. Is the media presenting on a liberal bias acting against President Trump, seeing as how he is Republican? Maybe, however media is always looking for the story that criticizes the public as it presents a more interesting story to the public.
Everyone has an opinion, that’s just how it is and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But as a journalist there are some rules when it comes to your personal bias when you are writing. Now days I feel like journalism has taken a turn to where authors are trying to influence their audience based off of their personal views and beliefs versus informing their audience about political news. It has been said many of times that this happened with the last election with Trump and Clinton more than any other election in the past. For example, you saw negative things presented about both candidates when the election was happening. Then after the election, the press turned on Trump and now all you see is negative news reported on him. Even though this is not factual and it is actually full of bias, the posts and stories go viral. A lot of times the reason this happens is because it feeds into other people’s bias so for them it gets really hard to stop and wonder if this post or news story could be twisted and persuaded to that favored bias instead of being a real story. Because everyone keeps sharing these exaggerated stories, they have become very popular. “Significantly, most research shows that people support news media outlets that seem to affirm their existing values and political leanings.” (Campbell, p. 455. News is fading now days and is now becoming people sharing their beliefs rather than facts.
In the Case Study: Bias in the News (pg. 484), “All new is biased.” This may be hard to hear but the people we receive our news from add their own bias views to the story. With all of the support and money from big organizations, this allows for them to add their own views into the news. Politicians seeking to divert attention away from their flaws often try to score points with voters by ” blaming” the media for bias news. In the book it says, “News after all is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science. This just goes to prove how bias the news can be, they can pick and choose what they want to include in their articles.
It seems as if the news and either its fake or real is always having a negative side of President Trump. According to the Too Much of a Bad Thing podcast, they state that during the first 100 days in office President Trump received 80% negativity and only 20% positivity. This is the worse ratings for a president since Ronald Reagan took office. I do see all of the comments every day in the news about President Trump and all of his comments that could lead him to having negative news reporting. When we compare a subject like Muslims in America, they have a very similar negative rating like President Trump. When the news media is bias they are negative towards a certain group or even prejudice. As they have been President Trump that comments he has made on social media and gotten a lot of attention from the nation and we always have a say about what he is doing wrong. President Trump has shocked me multiple times with his comments and social media interactions that I couldn’t believe a president would do. According to our textbook, it stats that 37% of fellow Americans say that “a great deal of political bias is in the news”. Compared to the few decades ago it is growing in percentages and the news companies are starting to offend the American people and this could even be bad for them. In the textbook, it stats that 37% of people interviewed says they distrust fox’s news. It’s only the beginning for negatively in the media today but it’s going to start affecting them because they need to understand many people won’t agree with what they are saying.
The element of bias is incredibly apparent in almost all sources of news. Because everyone in the industry wants to get the best story or wants to be right, it is hard not to find a journalist or news story that doesn’t lean towards being biased. A great example of how journalism can be biased is pretty much any news on President Trump. Almost anything the president says or does is negatively reported in the press, and it is conceived in the tone of the stories. But while this news is obviously biased, it is incredibly popular and the public eats it up. With that being said, I feel that journalists are putting many ideas and stories, such as Trump, on display constantly because it’s the kind of coverage that will get a lot of views and popularity. “They’re looking for the critical story, things that go bad, rather than things that go good. And it’s not just about presidents, it’s also about Congress. That erodes public trust.” (Patterson, WNYC). The most “interesting” stories in the news are those that are out of the ordinary – and since the President is trying to do new things, he is getting the worst kind of press from it to lure viewers of the news in. “Significantly, most research shows that people support news media outlets that seem to affirm their existing values and political leanings”(Campbell, p. 455). This shows that bias is definitely existent in journalism, as it almost has to be in order for most sources to get the views and readership that it needs to succeed in the industry.
There seems to be this large tug of war with whose right and whose wrong when it comes to what you cover and how you cover it. While I may understand that there are clear boundaries to what journalists should not cross simply as a general rule of thumb, the fact is, as the (Case Study:Bias in the News) stated, “All news is biased.” If not by a small increment, then by an obvious scale, all news will have some amount of bias in them. Is that so wrong? I personally don’t believe it’s the worse thing in the world, to a certain extent.
One of the most popular cases is bringing up President Donald Trump and his constant claims on “Fake News,” going so far so as to call any news that makes him look bad, “fake news.”The Podcast “On The Media: Too Much of a Bad Thing” they cover how Donald Trump has been the most negatively reported president in history, shattering the ratio of Bill Clinton who had “60% negative and 40% positive.” But we want to see why. There is a huge difference between fake news and the hard truth. That is why I don’t believe it’s the worst thing in the world that there may be a bias in the news, because “More than ever, national journalists are more highly educated…” as the article stated. From this I can draw the conclusion that the bias won’t be the worst thing in the world if it comes from people are are well educated people and if (as the book mentioned) they follow their general rule of trying to find a balance in the news they cover (such as not only interviewing someone from the Left but also from the Right) the bias doesn’t become the biggest deal.
We’ve covered in class that the job of a journalist is to get the truth out there. So long as they do things such as keep a fair enough balance, remain educated in their arguments, communicate themselves well, and do not make facts out of opinions, and things along that line, all they’re doing is their job. Whether people like it or not is up to them, because fortunately we have the option to pick and choose what we read and what we learn.
It is more prevalent than ever today in the news that bias is present in some form or another is everything to read in the news. The news we are consuming on social media and our televisions is out of touch and the failure of our local and regional newspapers is a significant contributing factor. We can see that our current journalist are falling victim to the group think concept and are out of touch with the audiences they write for. It is important to recognize “that all news is biased to some degree” (Media and Culture, Richard Campbell, Christopher R. Martin, & Bettina Fabos, Pg. 455) and that “news, after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science” (Pg. 455). Take a look at our most recent presidential election. President Trumps candidacy sparked more news coverage than elections in the past and most of that news coverage was not focused on his presidential potential at all. Thomas E. Patterson of the Shorenstein Center quoted in the episode “Too Much of a Bad Thing” from the On the Media podcast, “I think we have a press that’s obsessed almost with Donald Trump and has been since he announced his candidacy. They are so focused that almost anything he says or does, including his Tweets, basically feeds in the news coverage. If I had a criticism of the coverage of the first 100 days, is that it’s been so Trump-focused and there has been little carry through on, for example, on his executive orders.” To follow up on this it was revealed on the same podcast episode that Trumps coverage has been “80% negative coverage and 20% positive coverage.” Why is that you think? “Editors choose certain events to cover and ignore others; reporters choose particular words or images to use and reject others” (Media and Culture, Richard Campbell, Christopher R. Martin, & Bettina Fabos, Pg. 455). Same goes for those behind the computers working for internet publishers who feed into our social media obsessed methods of reading “news”. I would absolutely contend to the idea that the news is biased and the Spiral of Silence theory that states unpopular ideas are pushed to the margins where they slowly lose favor and spiral into silence. This is okay with this when it is a bad idea, yes, but what about the good ones? and the ideas that need to be seen?
It is impossible to come across news that doesn’t hold some sort of bias. It does not have to be directly presented to be there, just the amount of information given on a subject can greatly influence a story and the perspectives people develop on the subject. According to the podcast, “…when we looked at coverage of Muslims over the last decade, that’s run about 80% negative. And then you wonder why the American public has a negative perception, or many do, of Muslims.” This is a prime example of the way media can impact society with the type of information they are publishing. It is not uncommon for journalists to write articles that will be popular. According to the book, “Journalists favor storytelling with plenty of drama and conflict.” It is hard to find news that is straightforward and honest because of the need to sell stories and human biases that will always be present on some level.
News can be contorted and twisted in many directions depending on who and what you are listening to. Democratic, Republican, liberal, conservative all these are divided preferences our nations political system has set forth to determine where we stand just like we as Americans have a stance so does the news we watch. Many biases come about about certain topics that try to sway the masses watching one way or another. Thomas E. Patterson is the Bradly professor of Government of the press at Harvard University he states “When we looked at coverage of Muslims over the last decade that’s run about 80% negative and then you wonder why the American public has a negative perception of or many do of Muslims. now when trump announced for presidency he really tapped into a lot of resentment and those negative perception some people have of these groups made that a pretty easy sell in some quarters I’m not trying saying the press has full responsibility for that but i do think the balance is somewhat out of wack” Out of wack are the words used to describe media manipulation even by our own president to delve in a certain group to get them on his side and the media is to blame for it with how they portray Muslim people in media. This is only 1 of many, some news outlets would not let this happen though most do for views and to cater to their channels views. Bias is all around us it is up to us to determine our own decisions and go into every story with an open mind and free of bias, make the decision for yourself.
“They’re on the attack. They’re looking for the critical story, things that go bad, rather than things that go good. And it’s not just about presidents, it’s also about Congress. ” This quote exactly sums up news bias. Trump is under the microscope on everything that he does and the media is waiting for him to do something negative so they can filter through the news. The reason why he had a negative rating after his first 100 days is because people saw him the negative side of trump. Everything from his tweets to is press conferences and rallies are highlighting the negative comments that hes made. I don’t think I’ve personally seen a positive thing about trump that has been on the news. Even with other presidential candidates such as Hilary had a negative rating. News outlets should be focused on the real issues of the country or maybe even more positive news.
“Let’s acknowledge up front that all news is biased to some degree. News, after all is, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science” (Campbell.) This quote from our Media and Culture textbook perfectly describes the imperfect world of journalism. Whether you consider yourself to be more liberal, or conservative, there is no one way to accurately report news with 100% objectivity. Especially in today’s day and age where “journalists favor storytelling with plenty of drama and conflict…” (Campbell.) Whichever way the news is reported, those with opposing views will see the report as biased. Which is why, as the book states, in a 2014 study the Pew reported that 81% of people who consider themselves consistently liberal had a sense of distrust in Fox News who are known for their conservative reports. In light of this though, Donald Trump has heavily relied on the “Fake News” cop out.
It is stated in Too Much of a Bad Thing that within the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency, his ratings were 80% negative to 20% positive. Furthermore; he is also the first President who has received three times the amount of coverage in comparison to those who came before him. What I agreed with most from the podcast was throughout his first 100 days in office, journalists were so focused on Trump that they did not report on what was happening in the country. This is where I believe the bias against Trump has skyrocketed. There is too much news on Trump specifically, and not enough of what is happening beyond him and what he tweets.
In the On The Media clip, Too Much of a Bad Thing, Thomas E. Patterson says “But I think, as a scholar, you try to be unbiased and you put it out there and, at that point, boy, you lose control of it pretty fast.” By looking this quote, I found out that trying to be unbiased is not easy. I think every human has bias and bubble because they are grown different countries, backgrounds and have their own belief, religion, political taste and it is a natural thing. Therefore, IMHO, there is no clear way to get free from bias. According to Richard Campbell in the textbook, he says “let’s acknowledge up front that all news is biased to some degree. News, after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science.” As you can see, even news is biased to some degree. “Reporters tote their bubbles with them.” This quote is from the Politico article. Even editors choose certain events to cover and ignore others. Like this, there are a lot of biased news which is likely to make a lot of fake news these days. I think it is an individual job that believing whether an article is true or not.
In the case study on page 455 of our Media and Culture textbook, it is stated that “37 percent of Americans see a ‘great deal of political bias’ in the news–” (Campbell)
I am with the 37 percent of Americans that have seen this bias.
Because there has become a trend of progressive behaviors in the younger generations, such as; generation X and Millennials, a bias against conservative thinking has increased drastically. Now that these generations are becoming of age and finding jobs, it is only apparent what the views of the new professional journalists will be. Although biases are very prevalent in today’s society, it is something that everyone could’ve predicted.
False news and the bias that comes along with it are huge issues, and as a member of one of the growing generations, I would be honored to be one of the individuals who filter out the bias and stick to the facts.
The foundation of journalism is based on bias. Reporters have the right to choose what they include and what they choose to leave out and who is to say it is or is not influenced by personal beliefs and opinions. It isn’t some form of propaganda, it’s just how the news is nowadays. “Let’s acknowledge up front that all news is biased to some degree. News, after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science.” (p.455) The only thing I will ever agree with Donald Trump on is the following quote. “The fake news is the enemy of the people” (Donald Trump) because it is true. We only know what the source wants us to know, they are in complete control of that. We are only in control of how we perceive their message because we may not all perceive it the same way.
I believe that there is bias in the news because certain news reports lean towards the negativity in one candidate more so than the other(s) and vice versa. Some candidates like Obama and Hilary aren’t mentioned as much because I feel as though they know how to keep quiet or only give information that is pertinent to the subject at hand. People may agree and they may not. The press can take the information and run with it, or they can put it aside in hopes for a bigger, juicier, more gossipy sorry. Which is why I think the press loves Trump so much. If you don’t want to be talked about then stop talking. There is always someone lurking around the corner of someone like Trump, waiting for the next bit of something juicy to fall from his lips or fingertips to the press and they call him out on it only for him to yell fake news. I believe the press is biased against whoever the people hate or feel a certain type of negative way about the most, which just so happens to be Trump.
Most of journalism has some sort of bias against some sort of belief or ideology, whether it is more liberal, conservative, or some where in the middle. It has always been that way and it was not really that bothersome until today. I think journalists today are purposefully putting more of their beliefs into their reporting and masking reports with unnecessary commentary or people-bashing. They report on what people want to know instead of what they need to know.
I agree with what Herbert Gans in the textbook said, that journalists should be more moderate in their covering of political issues. Politics is already a very sensitive topic in America and journalists should be a bit more responsible in what they show to the public. This is especially true with the over-reporting of President Trump and only focusing on the negative aspects of his presidency. Thomas E. Patterson does state, “I think we have a press that has an obsession with Donald Trump and has been since he announced his presidency”. If the press keeps going in this direction, I think the media will almost permanently lose any credibility it once had with most of the country.
Bias in the news is very important to how our society understands news thus how we learn to communicate with one another. It is not a surprising when you are watching the news or reading a news article how clear an individual’s intentions and biases are In today’s society, people are constantly using slogans and comparing their information to similar ones and they obviously are saying the individual giving an alternate opinion is the lesser and uninformed. In the book in “Bias in the News” case study, it is stated that “let’s acknowledge upfront that all news is biased to some degree..News, after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science” They use cleverness, humor and hidden jabs in the news to make whatever they are saying seem like it’s the truth. Individuals sometimes use the news to persuade the audience to a certain side, not necessarily stating factual information.There is always an agenda when it comes to biases in the news, whether if it is accidental or intentional, there always is one.
Recently, there has been many stories in news that are being bias. For example, in the podcast they state, “when the district court judge in Seattle struck down that first immigration order, that would be considered an unfavorable news report from Trumps perspective”. This shows how news reports get picked and chosen. These news companies choose and pick these certain stories which are considered what is more important or not to the population who views these news stories. These unfavorable news stories are created mainly to bring up negative and unwanted attention about our government which will cause our audience to determine what is fake news and what is not fake news. There is so much fake news in our faces these days on twitter, facebook etc that it is really hard to determine what is real and fake news today.
Within todays media and especially with social media coming into the picture the world of bias. I would connect bias to the sports world because in sports there are a lot of bias within journalism because there are so many teams that they would have to infer that there would bias because there are so many options out there and there is always a journalist or something for every team and they would have to write about them. Within in sports there can also be tons of fake news. In the textbook on page 455 they list multiple sources that have deal with fake news that had to deal with the presidential debate, ” Huffington post, BuzzFeed news, Mother Jones. In a study in the Harvard international journal reported by both republicans and demorcrates states ” to influence perceptions of Bias ” by attacking the news media. What this infers to is people that will write and spread news that might not always be real. I think this also means that people will do whatever they want ands we need to be able to filter all the sources that have the facts to back everything up and that they have credible resources.
i believe news is a bias in terms of coverage. when you look at shows such as fox nightly news and nbc world news , there can be very different opinions more that factual news. this makes it harder to decide whether the news presented is fake or not/ if you agree with the bias
The mainstream media news has become extremely bias since the 2016 election in the amount of coverage they give our President Donald Trump a major amount of coverage with most of it being pointed toward the negative aspect of his presidency. The podcast stated that about “80% negative coverage and 20% positive coverage has been during his campaign and this is unheard of since Bill Clinton” The media has turned extremely bias in the fact of not so much reporting on the facts, but trying to exploit Trump at his every turn. Which we realize that he does a lot of wrong, but instead of focusing on the policies that would effect the american people the media is focusing on all the wrong that Trump does with his tweets, past endeavors, etc. The journalists are not entirely at fault here though, it is hard to report on the truth when the Trump Administration is trying to do its best to “stiff arm” the mainstream media. It is a difficult situation we are in, and we need to find a way to trust the media again.
In the past decade it has become very obvious that the news in some way is biased. Many editors get to choose exactly what they want to write about and voice only their opinion on the topic. Campbell explains this in the book when he states, ” Editors choose certain events to cover and ignore others; reporters choose particular words or images to use and reject others”. These days people have become so involved with what other people think and don’t take the time to take in consideration their own thoughts and opinions towards a topic. This example is shown in the podcast when Patterson states, “compared to what is normal for a president, Trump got 3 times as much coverage”. No matter the topic people are always going to follow everything Trump says and does. Because people in society hate Trump, no matter the topic, people will always choose the opposing side of Trump. This means that editors will only post what the population want to hear, which makes it bias and thus untrustworthy.
“Called the Fake News the enemy of the people” -Donald Trump. Fake is the enemy of the people state by Donald Trump. Put all differences aside I absolutely agree with President Trump on this note. In fact, news as a whole is very biased. The news picks and chooses sides of the story that will bring in more viewers which establishes more money for the news industries. This technique has been used for decades which makes these news industries so famous. This technique is used through all social media as well. In today’s society social media is HUGE, and is what most people use to find out what’s trending in the world today. Which is interesting because many things are presented on social media whether it is true or not. More viewers means more money and more money means better ratings and more successful that company becomes.
The majority of journalism has some degree of bias in it. Journalists have the responsibility to remain balanced and not let their personal or political views get in the way of reporting fairly, especially when it comes to reporting politics and the government. Many journalists who report the national news may be out of touch with their readers because of where they are located and this may be causing some problems with the public trusting journalists. Reporter’s views on politics may differ from somebody living in a rural area. “Under time and space constraints, most reporters follow the routine practices of their profession, which call on them to moderate their own political agendas, Still, news reports will always contain elements of bias, given the human imperfection in story telling and in communication through the lenses of language, images, and institutional values.” (from the text book Media and Society pg. 455) Journalists are more likely to report the negative story over the positive because it gets more of a response from readers and makes for a better story. It is up to the public, what their own beliefs are, and how they want to interpret the news to decide whether it is biased one way or another.
Since the election in 2016 Donald Trump has used the media to his advantage and it helped him win the election. He continues to use the media now in his presidency to express his views on Twitter almost daily. The press has become obsessed with reporting negative stories about the president more then any other president before. From the OTM podcast Bob Garfield states, “Now, I would assert that Trump’s complaints that the press is unfair is, in some ways, a self-fulfilling prophecy. He has, through his own words, actions, in actions and lies, invited the kind of coverage that he is complaining about. So what’s the press to do?” Trump is in favor of using the media when it is used to his advantage but when there is a negative story being reported he blames the news for making him look bad and claims that they are the enemy. Journalists are just doing their job and doing what they have always done and that’s report what is going on around them.
The “Bias in the news,” article argues about blaming the media for being bias. I agree that Reporters do have selective hearing when its comes to certain words or images that they get from the speaker. On page 455, it talks about “Journalist favor story-telling with plenty of drama and conflict, telling only two sides of a story.” The goal for news reporters and journalists are to sell out their stories through newspapers and local TV News. In the podcast, Trump made a statement that the Press reports negativity about him, just so they can feed on information to the Trump Haters. Journalists are going to be biased in their stories no matter what. That’s how they get the audiences attention.
There is no denying it that the news is biased. According to Richard Campbell, “all news is biased to some degree.” This is because editors decide what to print and more often than not, it will be about something they agree with or something that just happened (ex. landslide in Haiti). This in turn hurts people who don’t have the same opinion. Just as Ebersole stated above, “unpopular ideas are pushed to the margin” and eventually are silenced because people want to be accepted and loved by everybody these days, so their opinion magically becomes someone else’s and it just keeps going on like this. People are so involved with what others think of them that now they don’t know how to think for themselves anymore. This can and I fear eventually will turn ugly because someone is going to like the bad guy for once and suddenly you have the country liking them, which obviously won’t turn out well for anybody. People tend to get sucked up in these ideas or opinions because then turn to social media rather than actual news. People only turn to news when they think something important might be happening or they might just secretly hate that they got on the bandwagon. For example, Thomas Patterson from the OTM Podcast stated, “Compared to what’s normal for a president, he [Trump] got three times as much coverage. So the press can’t seem to get enough of Donald Trump, even though Donald Trump, for his part, certainly goes after the press at every opportunity.” No matter the news about Trump, people just want to know it. I don’t know if that’s because many of us secretly wish we would have voted for someone else and had not gotten stuck on the group-thinking or if it is just because Trump is so much more of an outspoken, generally different president than we have ever had before so it is intriguing to tune in to the news. I honestly could not tell you which one is true, but I do believe that you can’t trust anything the news says without triple checking their information anymore.
Media bias is a very real thing today and it is not hidden by any means. Whether something has a liberal or conservative bias it is very noticeable to the reader. This can be seen through use of words, statistics, and infographics. Today Fox News is considered very conservative and CNN is considered very liberal by many people. They both have different opinions of current events and politics. This is to be expected because there is always at least two sides to an argument. The problem is that neither of these outlets really present their information from both perspectives. This causes a divide between people because each side thinks they are right. The reality is there is many ways to do accomplish things, but often people are to close minded to see that. In the Podcast Too Much of a Bad Thing by On The Media they discuss the coverage of President Trump. They talk about how the press covers Trump more than anyone in the past, and that is not necessarily a good thing. Anything Donald Trump says or Tweets is covered by multiple news outlets. He is a very well-known and important person and becoming president magnified that significantly. This leads me to the one of the key points of the podcast, they said the media is more concerned about the bad weather than the good weather. This means that our society today is so focused on what is wrong with the world that they are not noticing the good. This could be something as simple as someone doing something positive in the community. I am not saying that you don’t see stories about something positive, but the negative usually has more coverage which is a fact. I think that it is important that people recognize the bias from news outlets, and they should educate themselves on issues from both perspectives. This will give their opinions validation regardless of their political affiliation. The media doesn’t make that easy by being biased in most of their published material, this leads to opinions based of emotion and not necessarily logic.
National media coverage has been the norm with journalists being more elite, coastal, and liberal. This could be a problem in the future the industry because it can lead to an erosion of trust due to so much fake news being created. In the Media and Culture book it states, “Editors choose certain events to cover and ignore others.” (Pg. 455) This leads to biased opinions, and it is perfectly fine to have an opinion, every one has one, however they are not always agreeable . Journalist can be unfairly prejudice for or against someone or something. The OTM states, “What we’re talking about is from the perspective of the person who’s the subject of the news story. Would that person see this news story as positive or negative? So it can be simply a development that reflects unfavorably on the individual.” We the consumers of this media can look at the news from whatever side we choose, some may see it as positive while another sees it as negative because of our biased opinions towards the topic being presented. Unfavorable news is purposely created to stir up attention and bring forward negative thoughts, especially in politics to make the government look bad, causing the audience to argue and consume what may or may not be fake news. It is hard to tell what is real and not real anymore because of fake news becoming such a norm.
I agree that most news today is laced with some sort of bias. In my spanish class, we discussed the idea that there are two different types of journalists. On one hand, there are the reporters, these journalists are witnesses of the facts, they inform on what they see. On the other hand, there are the columnists, these journalists are free to interpret the facts and give their opinion. In this day and age, many journalists fall under the category of columnists, which is where fake news springs up as the facts are “open to interpretation”.
Many journalists nowadays focus on what they believe to be the most important news story. For example, the OTM podcast explains how many journalists will focus on topics such as Trump’s tweets and childish behavior rather than on the actual detrimental impact he is having upon the world. The podcast states that topics such as, “Orders on immigration received quite a bit of press attention, the others accounted for only half of 1 percent of news coverage”. The selectivity of journalists is hindering the awareness of American citizens, as certain topics are almost withheld from public knowledge.
Also, the stories that are reported on are more often than not biased. The case study in the textbook explains that “…all news is biased to some degree” (pg. 455). Not only is there a threat of fake news, but there is also a threat of biased news. These two put together are a deadly combination to the awareness of American peoples. Rather than upholding the sanctity of written word, many journalists are corrupting the wonder behind reporting. People must now be cautious of what they read and see, which is a sad occurrence. Though freedom of speech reigns supreme in civil liberties, how far should society let that go? Especially if this freedom hurts the society at large?
In my opinion, saying that journalists are in a bubble is not fear. Every human being has his own bubble, own thoughts, background, beliefs, political preferences and also everyone has his own life experience. It is naive to think, that people can separate themselves from all off above just by picking a profession, which is called journalist. For me is absolutely clear, that everyone is biased, and there are no exceptions. No matter how good the journalist tries to be objective, no matter how hard is he trying to tell the story from the both sides, you can read the article multiple times and see, which side is he or she on. The book says, that news reports will always contain elements of bias, given the human imperfection in storytelling (Media & Culture, Richard Campbell, Christopher R. Martin, Bettina Fabos. Pg. 455) I absolutely agree with that statement.
I was amazed, that according to a OTM podcast, Donald Trump had only 20% of positive news about him. In Russia it would not be possible to have such a bad media support for the president (the one and only).
To conclude, I want to say that it is an issue, that we cannot see the pure news and decide what is good and what is bad about it, but I do not believe, that it is possible while people, not robots are telling stories.
With the vast advancement in media, fake news and biases have made highlights within the public eye. Whether the story lies within sports, everyday concerns, or politics “editors choose certain events to cover and ignore others; reporters choose particular words or images to use and reject others (Bias in the News, 455).” Therefore leaving out pieces of information that could possibly be important for viewers to view even if incorporating both sides of the situation to implement balance. However, I personally feel that Donald Trump initiates fake news and biases directed towards him since he “blamed the nations problems and his own offences and blunders on perpetrators ranging from crooked Hilary, to Mexicans, to the Muslims, to the democratic party, to the republican party, to Obama, to wall street, and Lex Luthor (Too Much of a Bad Thing).” Outside of this, he personally goes after media and receives three times of press coverage when it comes to situations resolving around him, and two thirds of the time he speaks about himself.
Madison Alfonso
In today’s society, the news often portrays what the people want to hear. Personally, I believe that today we never get the full truth behind the stories we see and read about. In our book, it states “let’s acknowledge up front that all news is biased to some degree. News, after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science.” (page 455) There is always a motive behind what the media is producing and selling; that is always going to be what the people want to hear, which isn’t always the full truth. When hearing or reading the news, the people should be confident that they are getting the full truth. In many cases, the media is always focusing on the negative side of stories. In the OTM podcast, it uses the example of bad weather. Referring back to the bad weather example, the majority of news focuses on negative stories rather than uplifting information.
I believe that fake news and news bias is a big problem in today’s day and age. Like Donald Trump said “Fake news is the enemy of the people.”
News bias, in my opinion, leaves too much unsaid and unanswered. When people watch or read a news story, they should expect to be reading the entire truth; not just the details that make the story more interesting to read. Intentional omission of details is a form of a lie. Why can’t the media release all important details of a story instead of intentionally leaving out details in order to get more readers and a better response?
I understand and agree with the quote from our book (page 455) that “news, after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science.” I get that not all stories can be told and that the news must decide which ones to ignore and which ones to pursue. I do however believe that they intentionally ignore the stories that go against their belief systems.
In the recent presidential election I do think that Trumps faults were reported in the media way more often than Hilary’s. Im not saying that either person was more or less in the wrong, however I am saying that the media possibly chose to ignore Hilary’s mistakes because she was the candidate of choice in their reporting area. So therefore they chose to capitalize on Trump’s mistakes.
Leaving out information and misinformation can cause people to be misinformed and uneducated on important societal issues. We shouldn’t have to choose a news channel or paper based on our beliefs, we should choose them because they are easy to access for us and that we know we will get all the information necessary without being biased one way or another.
Every one has the need to be right regardless of their moral compass. The media should be to inform the public, but I think it is used more to inform. Being in a position to affect the thoughts and beliefs of others, it is inevitable that many will attempt to make others agree with them.
During the elections, the media had a job to do. Their job should have been to educate the public, tell the truth, and to be neutral in their statements. This would only happen in a perfect world. Trump stated himself that the dishonesty was out of control. With the percentage of negative coverage being 80% compared to 20% positive, it’s hard to believe every one was being truthful and not letting their own opinions get in the way of delivering truthful messages.
“Journalists favor storytelling with plenty of drama and conflict.” (pg. 455). There is always a motive behind what the media says. In my opinion, it will always be money. By drawing attention to any story no matter the amount of honesty that comes with it, if it brings in business, they will do whatever it takes. Media sources always seek their advantages over what is right.
The press in my opinion focus more on what is pleasing to its audience. whats the point of writing if no one is willing to read your print, journalist rely on ethics based on the needs of the consumer. The point of being objectifying is so that you leave room for commercialization to be apart of the print process. The OTM podcast explained the process of negative covering politics. The press report on every story about Trump with very few of them having to to with actual politics. The podcast also states that trump had a 80% negative and 20% positive coverage compared to Bill Clinton who previously had the worst at 60% negative to 40% positive. Seeing a great return from subscribers, the delivery of negative notation went viral in relating to the previous election resulting in Trumps election.
It’s all a big hoax and journalist play the game to their advantage keeping personal opinions out of the equation so that the reader can come up with their own basis.
I definitely agree with the textbook that any type of news is biased to some degree. In the On The Media broadcast, President Trumps news coverage is primarily based around negative news. I never see anything positive that comes out of his actions. The news has a really big advantage in showing and telling the public just exactly how Trump has either said negative things/ has done negative actions or actually done something positive. Usually we don’t hear about the positive so it definitely is their fault of how he is portrayed in the media and in journalism. On page 455, the case study in the textbook, it says that journalists are there to give and tell the story, not put their own input and most journalists have limited time to actually break the norm and not do their routine findings.
Obviously, there is no way to get rid of bias. Even scientists preforming an experiment are required to state possibilities which can skew the results. Every thing we see is filtered through the press and most people are going to be partial to the one they agree with. But not only that I believe that more often people see news fake or not they’re more likely to believe it’s true. “So focused that almost anything he says or does including his tweets basically feed into the new coverage.” (Too Much of a Bad Thing), this easily explains that the media is powerful. If Trump does it, it goes on the news, somewhere or everywhere. He received so much coverage through his campaign and after it, that there isn’t a day or even hours that something isn’t posted about him in the news. The sheer amount of attention Trump receives from the press got him elected. I honestly think he should have been discounted by everyone in the press after he made fun of a disabled person on live television. But that didn’t happen and he continued to do worse things and got even more attention.
I tend to look at more Liberal ideas, so if i see something written from a conservative point of view I think well first they’re crazy, and second I don’t care what they have to say because I don’t believe it. Obviously i should be privy to hearing both sides, and I think this is often how Americans take their news, if they believe then they’ll support if they don’t then it should be discounted. “37 percent of Americans see a great deal of political bias’ in the media” (Media and Culture). Over a third of the population can agree that they see bias, and it’s mostly because all of us are bias whether we like it or not.
I think news is certainly biased and it’s really not up for debate, however the idea that it is largely on the left seems to be a bit of a stretch. One huge reason that Trump was elected was due to the hardcore bias that the right wing media uses to convince voters to not trust the left side at all. I mean e saw the right wing media question a presidents (Barack Obama) citizenship in the United States completely unjustly.
The OTM podcast talks about how the media focuses on the stupid stuff that trump does like Tweeting and making insidious comments towards other world leaders rather than truly showing how insanely bad of a job the guy is doing which is really what both sides, the right and the left need to see. Our book on page 455 states that the “face” of news media is changing by the day, this is true in a sense that not only do we not know who to trust as a population but we can’t decipher real from fake.
OTM also talks about the complete lack of news on actual policies by saying “Orders on immigration received quite a bit of press attention, the others accounted for only half of 1 percent of news coverage”. When you really think about that quote it couldn’t have been more true. everything else is just fluff.
It is very apparent that there is a bias in the journalism and the news today. The two main problems with the people who produce the news is their political bias in presenting facts and there bias in coverage.
It is almost impossible to have some kind of bias in news. But it becomes unacceptable when multiple people from different political backgrounds say there is “a great deal of political bias.” In the case study “Bias in the News” presented in the Media & Culture text book by Richard Campbell, Christopher R. Martin and Bettina Fabos it is stated that a survey revealed 49 percent of Republicans and 32 percent of Democrats agreed there was “great deal of political bias” in the news.
In the On The Media clip, Too Much of a Bad Thing, it is also spoken on how the press covered the election and the Trump presidency thus far. Thomas E. Patterson, a guest on the On the Media clip, says, “The coverage of the first 100 days broke 80 percent negative to 20 percent positive.” This not only extremely unfair to the president but to the people who consume news.
We are left to decide whether we trust the industry that has fed us information for years or our president who claims the industry is “fake news.” If there wasn’t such a bias in the way Trump has been covered and how journalists present their facts people would be more comfortable trusting the media. But until they change the president will be able to have leverage on them and their audience.
I agree that the news highlights things that really do not matter, they show only the things that will get people going. The news now a days just wants to stir the pot even more, and make sure everyone tries to get in on whatever topic they are taking about. The news has changed over the years dramatically, with it in my opinion now being Liberal. “The News Media Bubble” on page 455 summed up to me that the “Face” of news and media is drastically changing by the day. In the past it claims that there were many more “faces” of news and media, but now alot of viewers are leaning in one direction.
The OTM broadcast focuses on how the media focuses on President Trump more than what is actually going on in the world. The thing I took out of this podcast is the statement on immigration , how the media focused so much on what Trump had to say or what he wanted to do, we as a country forgot what is actually going on. “Orders on immigration received quite a bit of press attention, the others accounted for only half of 1 percent of news coverage”.
I feel the same way about all of this with something that happened recently in our country. The Vegas shooting was obviously a major tragedy, but in my opinion the news was more focused on what Trump had to say about guns, and what his press conference was about. Instead I feel we should focus on the victims and there families. The time is already rough enough, so who really cares what is said unless you’re focused on the actual topic of the shooting.
I 100% agree when it comes to the idea that news is biased. We live in a society where opinions run thick in our blood. Even with the major press companies preaching to us that they are unopinionated and trust worthy, it is still human nature to be more lenient towards one side of an argument, especially when politics and the government are included. Today everything that we see is filtered through the press. They get the first-hand look at what they are going to share with their consumers. According to the case study, “Editors choose certain events to cover and ignore others; reporters choose particular images or words to use and reject others” (Bias in the News, pg. 455). In consideration of this quote we are able to see how the press is able to dictate what we can and cannot not see. This itself is a form of biased news because we’re seeing and hearing what they want us to. Also, when it comes to biasedness in the news, Trump and his unhealthy relationship with the press continues to be a constant. “Trump has gone to war with the press, there could be a tendency for the journalists to think they’ve gone to war with the president, and to a degree they see themselves as the opposition. I think they’re headed for trouble” (Too much of a Bad Thing, podcast). This quote shows the press is ruthless and not afraid to compete with someone as powerful as the president, meaning that creating bias news for them is no big deal. If anything, it is simple especially if it is successful in curving the opinions of its consumers.
The On the Media podcast talks about the negative press coverage when dealing with president Trump and basically, I have come to conclusion that he brings most of it upon himself. I’d have to agree with the fact that the press does amplify, in a way, the news whether it be good or bad, but especially when it’s bad. I also think that there is most definitely bias in the press, but for that matter, there is bias with anything news related. It’s how they get people to believe one thing or another. In the textbook on page 455, it talks about journalist’s and the fact that they are merely just storytellers. Of course there is going to be their own bias on whatever they are reporting based on their take on the subject. So, with any news, I think you can believe whatever you want to, but you just have to know that there will always be bias.
I believe everywhere you read, watch, and listen to any kind of news, it’s going to be biased in some way. Bob Garfield said in the OTM Podcast, “We have a press that is almost obsessed with Donald Trump.” This statement is highly accurate because no matter where, when, or how our president decides to speak, the world knows. Whether these outlet are reporting, for, against, or “neutrally”, there is always going to be biased of some kind. The case study from the textbook on page 455 states, “journalists are primarily storytellers and not objective scientists, searching for liberal or conservative bias should not be the main ficus of our media criticism.” Unfortunately this statement has become more and more true as time progresses and news reporting has regressed. As a public entity, many people have decided to watch just one news source they trust that further goes into and reinforce their beliefs and ideas, but be too stubborn to see the other side and that is the issue with biased news in the modern day. Knowing this, there should be a little more of an education process on how to interpret news to see the other side of an argument or issue when you yourself, do not initially believe how, why, and even what is happening in your world.
With news coverage all around and a star to headline the act, it’s no wonder that the idea of being “politically biased” has become such a hotly debated topic within today’s society and is continuing to remain relevant long after it’s prominence within the 2017 election. Within the OTM broadcast we listened to, it is evident that Donald Trump has become a staple within the field of media, especially regarding his coverage, and is what the podcast regards as being his own “self fulfilling prophecy”.The idea of Trump’s self fulfilling prophecy is a very interesting concept to think about in these terms, and to me is the perfect metaphor to accurately describe how the press has been handling him this last year. The OTM broadcast with Patterson spouted about some facts as well concerning his news coverage within and before the 2017 election and presidency. President Trump’s coverage was 80% negative and 20% positive, yet all the while he was receiving 3x’s as much coverage within his first 100 days than with any other president before him. The media as always is simply feeding into this event, but it also opens up my eyes to possibly an even greater issue. I believe more now than ever that we have wrapped ourselves up as a collective within this whole matter far too much. Years ago, issues of this magnitude did not exist at the size that they do today, and I think people were better off for it. I digress, I believe the book summed up the matter well, explaining “Still news reports will always contain elements of bias, given the human imperfection in storytelling and in communicating through the lenses of language, images, and institutional values” (Campbell/Martin/Fabos). There is nothing we can really do at the scale we operate on, so to “sweat the small stuff” in terms of whining about who is biased with who is a very overrated topic to me in general. Perhaps if we didn’t feed into this ordeal as a whole, just like the media in general, the need to shine light on the matter would dissolve, granting us back journalism and reporting at the political level that would have minimum influences of being biased.
I believe that there is no way that we can get truly unbiased news. Everyone puts their own personal biases on what they experience or hear about subconsciously, and for many of the liberal journalists I believe they aren’t going out of their way to be biased, but they simply apply their takes to politics. The book said that 34 percent of national journalists self identify as liberal, while only 7 percent are conservative (Media & Culture, Richard Campbell, Christopher R. Martin, Bettina Fabos. Pg. 455). On the same page, the author makes a very valid point that journalism is a profession that documents change, checks power, and reports wrongdoing. This would seem to very much favor the left, who believe in change. Relating that back to Trump, his case is very special. In the “Too Much of a Bad Thing” podcast, it is revealed that Donald Trump has been on the negative end of 80% of the articles written about him. However, the podcast points out that a majority of these articles are not opinion articles with someone else commenting on his actions, they are Trump’s own voice. With Trump using Twitter often and giving many controversial sound bytes, he has become an outlier that is very easy to write negative articles about. Most presidents and politicians including Hillary Clinton don’t make it easy to use their own words to build a negative article (On the Media: Too Much of a Bad Thing, Thomas E. Patterson). While I do think that news is inherently biased against him, Trump needs to understand that his off-hand remarks and twitter posts are very much a negative headline in the making. I think “fake news” needs to be taken with a grain of salt because it combines both the fact that most reporters are liberal and the fact Trump makes it so easy. I don’t think media is inherently rigged against him.
Media Bias in my opinion is a term that people should accept as a reality regardless of their viewpoint. What I mean by that is that every form of media is bias based on the journalist/author’s opinions and values. This is mentioned both in the case study in our textbook and the On the Media podcast. In the podcast, it is mentioned in the instance that after a journalist publishes a story, as unbiased as it may seem, they are not in control of how that story is interpreted. I believe this to be true because stories are often misinterpreted based on your preconceived ideas on the certain topic. Fake news has become such a controversial topic based on the events that occurred during the 2016 presidential election. The term was created by Presidential candidate Donald Trump after multiple stories were published in response to his presidential campaign as well as his character. I think fake news has become such a big thing because Trump considers the press to be the largest conglomerate of fake news that exists today which is crazy to me because the press consists of multiple different departments that are not only limited to bias journalism. The press in this instance is made up of those bias and unbiased that try to report what is both relevant and important to what is occurring in society today. I think journalism and the press are important in the quest of knowledge and staying up to date with what is happening in the world and while is may be hard sometimes to weed through the bias that surrounds the majority of the media, it is important that we acknowledge that bias exist and that journalism can sometimes have bias no matter how much we trust the source.
The podcast from OTM states that news in bias day to day and many people do not understand the value media has on people watching or listening. However, being the bias is in DNA of every human on this earth rather race, gender, etc. even when trying to or not. Also, people have the right to state opinion to the subjects that is being brought up at the time and whether wrong or right people have the right to make their own decisions about the situation. Then news has the more of the negative impact it give on the subject then the good because the news need to cover the subject that people try to the worry about rather then the positive aspects of the world. The knowledge and power media has over the world with positive, negative, and bias shown to the world can change the views in the newspapers or news reporters in general. In the podcast during the election of 2016, they were bias towards Clinton with soundbites by not adding in because Trump had more soundbites talking about Clinton rather then Clinton talking about herself. Also even Trump 2/3 of the time the voice of Trump was heard. “Politicians seeking to divert attention away from their flaws often try to score points with voters by ‘blaming’ media for journalists favor storytelling with plenty of drama and conflict. Searching for liberal or conservative bias should not be the main focus of our media criticism.” (Media & Culture, Richard Campbell, Christopher R. Martin, Bettina Fabos, pg. 455). The media has the biggest impact on how the people of different countries view each other or even states for that matter and can really make a change in just a printing or recording.
There is of course bias in the media. There seems to be a lot more negative news stories covered compared to positive stories. This can be seen even just when watching the nightly news. The OTM podcast “Too Much of a Bad Thing” goes into this idea. The podcast says, “They’re looking for the critical story, things that go bad, rather than things that go good.” (6:25) The media seems to cover stories that will catch the attention of the audience more. This being said, the actual news story is objective, but what the journalists are choosing to cover and how they are doing it is what makes it biased. The textbook “Media and Culture” by Richard Campbell, Christopher R. Martin, and Bettina Forbes discusses that when a person is shown in a negative light (even if all the information is accurate), they seem to think the media is being biased. Of course, it does not help the media’s case considering the ratio of good to bad stories is so extremely uneven. The textbook says, “However, more significant biases in the news media do exist: journalists favor storytelling with plenty of drama and conflict, telling only ‘two sides of a story’, power and well-connected sources, and practices that serve the space and time limits.” (page 455). This goes exactly with what the podcast says. Even though, the information in a story is accurate and objective, what is being chosen to be covered and how it is presented is what makes the media seem so biased.
Coming across bias in the media is a commodity that is not too surprising. Journalists do let their biases come into their line of work, there’s no denying that. The main problem that I see with this is that Americans aren’t getting the real news that they want, deserve and need to hear. Bias creates separation. Obviously Fox leans more towards the right, while the New York Times leans more towards the left. These biases alone lead to the ruination of journalism, and distract journalists from reporting on what is really happening in the world. During the On the Media podcast featuring Thomas E. Patterson of Shorenstein Center, Patterson says “If this had been a democratic administration, and had gotten off to the start that it has, you’d see something very close to what we found; very heavily negative coverage.” Donald Trump is a unique president. He speaks what’s on his mind at all times, no matter how ridiculous it may be. So it may not come as a surprise when you read an article stating that Trump said something idiotic. But let’s be honest, no matter who would have come out on top after the 2016 Presidential Election the media would be reporting about all of Hillary’s mishaps too. The press holds a lot of power in their hands when it comes to informing the public about what’s going on in the world. It’s is a important job in our society, and the people who read the news should be provided with ACTUAL news.
Works Cited
Garfield, Bob, and Thomas E Patterson. “Too Much of a Bad Thing .” Wnyc.org, 1 June 2017, http://www.wnyc.org/story/too-much-bad-thing/.
Coming across bias in the media is a commodity that is not too surprising. Journalists do let their biases come into their line of work, there’s no denying that. The main problem that I see with this is that Americans aren’t getting the real news that they want, deserve and need to hear. Bias creates separation. Obviously Fox leans more towards the right, while the New York Times leans more towards the left. These biases alone lead to the ruination of journalism, and distract journalists from reporting on what is really happening in the world. During the On the Media podcast featuring Thomas E. Patterson of Shorenstein Center, Patterson says “If this had been a democratic administration, and had gotten off to the start that it has, you’d see something very close to what we found; very heavily negative coverage.” Donald Trump is a unique president. He speaks what’s on his mind at all times, no matter how ridiculous it may be. So it may not come as a surprise when you read an article stating that Trump said something idiotic. But let’s be honest, no matter who would have come out on top after the 2016 Presidential Election the media would be reporting about all of Hillary’s mishaps too. The press holds a lot of power in their hands when it comes to informing the public about what’s going on in the world. It’s is a important job in our society, and the people who read the news should be provided with ACTUAL news.
Works Cited
Garfield, Bob, and Thomas E Patterson. “Too Much of a Bad Thing .” Wnyc.org, 1 June 2017, http://www.wnyc.org/story/too-much-bad-thing/.
Coming across bias in the media is a commodity that is not too surprising. Journalists do let their biases come into their line of work, there’s no denying that. The main problem that I see with this is that Americans aren’t getting the real news that they want, deserve and need to hear. Bias creates separation. Obviously Fox leans more towards the right, while the New York Times leans more towards the left. These biases alone lead to the ruination of journalism, and distract journalists from reporting on what is really happening in the world. During the On the Media podcast featuring Thomas E. Patterson of Shorenstein Center, Patterson says “If this had been a democratic administration, and had gotten off to the start that it has, you’d see something very close to what we found; very heavily negative coverage.” Donald Trump is a unique president. He speaks what’s on his mind at all times, no matter how ridiculous it may be. So it may not come as a surprise when you read an article stating that Trump said something idiotic. But let’s be honest, no matter who would have come out on top after the 2016 Presidential Election the media would be reporting about all of Hillary’s mishaps too. The press holds a lot of power in their hands when it comes to informing the public about what’s going on in the world. It’s is a important job in our society, and the people who read the news should be provided with ACTUAL news.
Works Cited
Garfield, Bob, and Thomas E Patterson. “Too Much of a Bad Thing .” Wnyc.org, 1 June 2017, http://www.wnyc.org/story/too-much-bad-thing/.
I strongly agree that there is a lot of bias in todays news. journalists today report more on their own options versus reporting just the facts. as stated in the OTM podcast Trump got almost three times more press coverage than an other president in history. The press report on every story about Trump with very few of them having to to with actual politics. The podcast also states that trump had a 80% negative and 20% positive coverage compared to Bill Clinton who previously had the worst at 60% negative to 40% positive. The news today reports mostly on negative things about people they do not like or people that have opposite views of them. The press has a lot of power because a lot of the country listens to them because the believe what is on the news is true, but in most cases they are just options. the press needs to start just reporting facts and not opinions.
Bias in the news is a very dangerous thing to ignore or outright deny. Without looking at what is being reported with a critical eye is to provide oneself with a view on world events that is skewed towards certain ideas that only line up with their own, creating a bubble for them that doesn’t challenge readers perspectives on their surroundings, to quote the text “News, after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling, not objective science. (p.455) News is not reported objectively, everyone chooses what to report, and how they report it to align with their own bias. This demonstrated the importance of balancing ones intake of news with sources that both do and do not line up with their own values. Doing so provides readers with a more complete view on the events happening around them. The OTM podcasts demonstrates this perfectly when it states that average citizens perspectives on the trends on crime, employment, and inflation are worse then they actually are. This means that, whether it be on purpose or not, people are ignoring certain reports on things that conflict with the preconceived notions they already have about those things.
There is of course bias in the media. Media seems to favor covering negative stories rather than positive stories. This can be seen even just from watching the news one night. The ratio of bad stories to good stories is so uneven. The media seems to filter through information and go after the stories that will grab the attention of the audience. Although the information the media is giving is objective, what they are choosing to cover and how they are choosing to cover it is where their bias comes in. This is talked a lot about in the OTM podcast, “Too Much of a Bad Thing”. The podcast says, “They are looking for the critical story, things that go bad rather than things that go good.” (6:25) The podcasts seems to think that one of the the media’s worst biases in that it centers around negative stories way more than positive stories. Then of course, the biases of the audience members come in as well. They seem to notice the unbalance of good to bad, especially if they think the center of the negative information should not be shown in a negative light. This of course causes them to recognize the biased information in the media. The textbook “Media and Culture” by Richard Campbell, Christopher R. Martin, and Bettina Forbes discusses that the people usually being shown in a negative light (even if the information is true) think the media is being biased. The book also says, “However more significant biases in the new media do exist: journalists favor storytelling with plenty of drama and conflict, telling only ‘two sides of a story’, powerful and well-connected sources, and practices that serve their space and time limits.” (page 455) This goes exactly with what the podcast says. The media might not be biased in the actual message they are sharing, but they are biased in how they put the message together and what they are deciding to actually cover in the first place.
Referring to the Media and Society textbook (pg. 455) “most research shows that people support news media outlets that seem to affirm their existing values and political leanings”. Although, the statement alone could pass along many and people could overlook the societal bias concept of the statement alone. This would suggest that not only are there bias in the news, but bias expressed into viewership and support as well. This could pose as potential danger as to what news gets spread and supported from outlets as that many individuals would not be open to other affirmations of opposing views and content that does not reflect similarities unto theirs. This could cause a decline in certain news information and the minds of the common man because of the closed minded and one sided opinionated beliefs and afflict the potential of being filled with the right information and knowledge in order to spot fake/biased news and obtain and educated thought. “News, after all, is primarily selective reporting and storytelling.” This after all, could suggest of some of the re-routes and loop holes that some media outlets may work their around in order to tell a specific story, but with a twist which could be an intent for others to believe their story or appeal to the others with similar values and beliefs. The OTM podcast states that “as a scholar you try to be unbiased and you put it out there–and at that point you lose control.” This could suggest that you lose control of the way the people and the press mishandle certain information that sway consumers and journalists in a biased direction. Biased and fake news will continue to pursue it’s way through political journalism which obviously takes a toll through modern society and the knowledge of the common man.
A shift in the geography of mass media has resulted in a skewed image of society as a whole. Media has become centered around Metropolitan areas, this has lead to a very strong liberal bias amongst journalists, and reporters. While this bias is very specific to the area it is produced in, many see news stations as reflections of America as a whole. This creates a system in which groupthink can reign supreme, since only one side of an argument is being presented and shown as correct within the scope of all society, leading the marginalization of dissenting views. This can make distinguishing liberal propaganda and accurate reflections of balanced American society difficult, as media strives to create the perception that liberal tendencies are the norm. The case study highlights the commercialism of a society that praises trivialized issues, as they tend to sell. The censorship of issues being brought to the audience often has a liberal bend, not allowing for things like praise for Trump. Trump claims that the media hasn’t been as unkind to any other President in the country’s history, while this may be true, he also has the highest amount of pubic dissent in modern history. It is with great sincerity that I believe the media will bend the next generation into an era of sustained liberalism.
The Case Study: Bias in the News (pg.455) explains the appeal of “news media outlets that seem to affirm their existing values and political leanings”. This provides an understanding that news consumers are well aware that all news is somewhat biased. With Fox News being Consistently liberal and CNN being consistently conservative, people are able to see the clear divide in political views. The podcasts do a good job of proving this further when they point out how “…press focus on candidates more than what’s happening in the country”. Even in the article above, I agree that news tends to be directed towards Democrats in today’s society. I think overall, the news is definitely biased, there is no doubt about it. But I hope that news coverage can become more in-depth in the future.
This article “The News Media Bubble” is really highlighting how the “faces” of the news we receive today are changing quite drastically, and maybe not completely in a good way. Previous journalists provided us with a bit more of a mix between liberal, conservative, and moderate. However; lately there has been a significant shift in this profession, to where most journalists now would be considered to be “liberal.”
Our case study mentions that this trend has been developing for some time now, stating that, “Since the late 1960s, the public perception has been that mainstream media operate mostly with a liberal bias.” They also mention a “Pew survey” that measures the comparative percentage of each party in the media, which turned up at around 34% liberal, 7% conservative, and 54% moderate. (Media and Culture, pg 455)
Due to this extreme imbalance in the media, a lot of the news we have been receiving lately seems to be biased. The podcast, “Too Much of a Bad Thing” focuses specifically on how this media bias has been playing out with the recent election of Donald Trump as the new president.
In reference to Donald Trump and his presidency in relation to the media, the podcast states, “The coverage of the first 100 days broke 80% negative to 20% positive.” this is astounding, considering the second runner up for “bad media coverage” was Bill Clinton, and he had 60% negative to 40% positive. The podcast also mentions that Donald Trump is also getting roughly 3X as much coverage as any other presidential candidate. “Too Much of a Bad Thing- On the Media, WNYC) This is a perfect example of how having a society of journalists that lean heavily to one side (in any matter, not just politics) may be bad news when it comes to what kind of variety and coverage the American people are receiving.
The OTM podcast states that the press focuses on Trump more than they actually focus on what is really going on in the country. The podcast also states that the press has given negative coverage to every single president since Ronald Reagan, except for Barack Obama. I think that there is bias in the press for sure because just like the podcast says the press over reports things that are good and bad, which leads to people overly believing anything the press reports. The book claims that over thirty-seven percent of Americans are exposed to biased news. This can be a good or bad thing. I personally believe that it has more cons than pros. Biased news might lead to Americans not knowing what to actually believe, and what the actual real story is. With that being said, I also believe that if one is searching for one side of a story that biased news is a good way to get that. I think that the press should be careful with the power that they obtain through news, and that people should all be aware and educated on how to spot biased news and or fake news.
I totally agree that bias surrounds the media everyday. In the WNYC Pod Cast, OTM states that “It is the media’s responsibility to report the good and the bad.” With this quote in mind, I believe that it is our job as the reader to decipher whether the source is credibly or non-credible. In today’s society, it’s hard to tell what news is real or fake as President Trump calls out Fox News and CNN for reporting false information. According to the case study: Bias in the News, “News is primarily selective reporting and storytelling. ” The media is in complete control of all stories, especially political. Also, bias opinions usually emanate from politicians who dislike negative stores about them. Although these bias opinions on negative stories generally tend to be true, there is still a two-sided story that comes with it.
Personally, I think it’s sad that the President is trying to take away a write that is embedded into the constitution. Maybe the stories from the ‘fake news’ aren’t true, but there is always a professional way to handle a situation. NO matter what Trump says or does, the media will always be right there to report it at that very second in time. With the luxury of Twitter and other social media websites today, we are not only bashing the president about his bias opinions, but we are also bashing each other. The two-sided bias opinion will not self resolve itself until one side is able to express a story without dramatizing it.
Being bias is pretty much human nature. I very much agree that journalists let their own personal beliefs get in the way when releasing news. Although they try to have two sides to the story, they almost always don’t have an equal balance between the story on the right and the story on the left.
Journalists also write stories based on what will get people talking. Whatever creates the most publicity is what gets released to the public. In the Case Study: Bias in the News, it states “journalists favor storytelling with plenty of drama and conflict.” (pg. 455).
The news releases certain stories about certain topics to get people to respond and react. Donald Trump has been a very popular subject for journalists whether they’re for or against Trump. “The press honestly is out of control, the level of dishonesty is out of control,” said by Trump himself in the OTM Podcast. The media has had a major influence on the way people view things.
The accusations against the media not being honest has caused a lot of controversy. People will believe anything which is why there are so many issues with what is real and what is fake.
Now when it comes to news i agree 100% with the fact that we here a lot more about the negative press then the positive press. From the podcast it was said that only one president (Barrack Obama) has revived more positive press than negative. When we here about the latest press releases about Trump it is not the reporters words we hear that affect us, it is Trumps words that bring us to debates and frustration so in theory he brings the negative press attention upon himself. In the case study on 455 of our textbook its states that, “since journalists are primarily story tellers and not objective scientists, searching for liberal or conservative bias should not be the main focus of our media criticism.” This is eluding to the fact that these reporters are placing personal feeling into these reports which creates bias throughout the body of consumers who read the press report. In the New media bubble blog it states, “Whether the crowd is professional journalists or citizen journalists, the idea is that collective wisdom is superior to the wisdom of any one member of the group. That is fine if the conditions are met. If not, group-think, an idea popularized in the 1970s by Irving Janis, leads to poor judgement and low-quality decision-making. According to Janis,” Ones fake news can effect a a large amount of the population just because they read it from some press report and that bias can take control of what is presented form the media.
Bias in the News
To say that there is no bias underlining in the news would be a lie, to say that bias in the news has recently made a more dominant stance recently would be a matter of opinion. I would be lying if I said I had known there was a huge bias in news even before Trump made his decision to run for the Presidential election public. Although knowing more on the topic now, my knowledge leads to the news having bias opinions has always been the case, but it is also within a strong opinion of mine that there is a false sense that news has become more biased as time goes on. Given that Trump has made his presence more known in the news, I think that plays a huge factor into more acknowledgement of opinion based bias in news, “Politicians seeking to divert attention away from their flaws often try to score points with voters by ‘blaming’ media for something- usually bias… Donald Trump took this tactic to new heights” (Media & Culture, Richard Campbell, Christopher R. Martin, Bettina Fabos, pg. 455). The authors of Media & Culture make a statement that Donald Trump has implemented a higher level of blame then other politicians have ever done, but just because he has done this, does not mean that the news is actually more biased, but maybe that Trump has just put more of the blame on them to cover up all his many flaws. One wonders, what makes Donald Trump different than other politicians, well for starting points he is the most disliked politician currently, “The coverage of the first 100 days broke 80% negative to 20% positive” (On The Media: Too Much of a Bad Thing, Thomas E. Patterson). My theory was that Trump knew the negativity between him and the public, so his thought process was he was going to persuade the public into liking him more by claiming that all this negativity about him was “fake news” when it was really not. Although this is the theory I believe, I do know that the news has multiple instances of bias and that it is not all behind Trump, because as stated in this article, Journalists are telling a story from their perspectives, which may be very different from each readers individual perspectives.
First, I would like to say, very straightforwardly, that there is no such thing as an individual that is 100% free of bias. Each of us has our own view of “the truth,” and we have our own morals and values. Knowing this, every news story will inevitably have some political skewing, which is why many news organizations will make an attempt to interview both liberals and conservatives. Even acknowledging this, bias is still prevalent. As said in Media and Culture, “Editors choose certain events to cover and ignore others.” (Pg. 455)
It is our responsibility as a consumer of media to understand that any story can be biased to fit a political agenda, and use the information provided to form our own opinions. As stated in the podcast, In The Media, “As a scholar you try to be unbiased and you put it out there–and at that point you lose control.” The problem begins to become that news organizations, in presenting the news, also present many of their own opinions amongst discussion, which influence consumers.
Biases within media are essential to the consumer as a whole. The idea behind the media is to report information and broadcast it to a specific audience. If we take that into consideration we can understand that people are entitled to their opinion. Whether thats between newspapers or new stations people are going to report on the subject matter that is most relevant for their beliefs and opinions.
A more recent issue within the media is the concept of reporting ” fake news” or false information. The idea behind that is terrifying as the media can mis-inform and deceive their audience. Although this has been commonly known throughout the industry that they tend to bend the truth to make their stories more flavorful. Page 455 states “Journalists favor story-telling with plenty of drama and conflict, telling only two sides of the story.” This is a common tactic used within the new industry. With prior Knowledge we can say its safe to assume that the idea behind “fake news” or media iliteracy is a concept that is most likely true based on the fact that reporters and journalist want to make the best story possible regardless if they have to bend the truth.
I agree with the The News Media Bubble about the part that describes how the whole situation on how the whole on how the whole media was lied to and basically led on, Nate Silver states “the national media were the victims of group think leading up to the 2016 Presidential election”. I have a personal connection to this because I would see on Twitter and Facebook and such, that it was predicated that Hillary would win, and then when the election night came around, trump had a very surprising lead, This didn’t make sense to me because I was told that Hillary would win in a landslide. There does happen to be a lot of fake news, and a lot of cites and sources you can not trust because they do not have the supporting facts to back up their claims, A big news source is TMZ where they just spit out whatever they see. Also Trump when he was running for present during the 2016 election he took his sight on even banning Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Mother Jones etc.. ( p.455)
http://www.wnyc.org/story/too-much-bad-thing/
Richard Campbell, Christopher R.Martin, Bettina Fabos
I believe that there are many people with many different opinions within media. Media biases have to do with what journalist say whether it is true or false. Journalist also have selective hearing for example they listen and gather information on what the people want to hear and not the main details about the story. I feel as if they do this for the pleasure of a “like” on their post. “The coverage of the first 100 days broke 80% negative to 20% positive.” stated by Bob Garfield in the OTM podcast. This is important because it shows that people also have selective hearing and like to hear about the negative things journalist say about Donald Trump and not the positive things that he has to say or offer. Trump has a bad image on himself right now because of his actions that he has done, so reporters and journalist take advantage of this image and make it into stories that the people want to hear.
In the OTM podcast Thomas Patterson said “If you look at all presidential nominees since Reagan and their coverage during the general election, Democratic and Republican, all but Barack Obama in 2008 received, on balance, negative coverage.” It’s the fact that everyone has selective hearing and not just reporters; granted reporters are worse than anyone else. Everyone only wants to believe what they want to believe. Anyone who reports has a biased opinion. Even when I hear something I still have a biased opinion. If you were to be hiring someone and someone you knew applied you would have a biased opinion on who to hire. That’s why you’re not allowed in the interview if you know them. From experience, even when I’m writing an article for something I still give a slight biased opinion. That’s I don’t really follow politics, everything anyone has to say has a slight curve in what they want to happen or what like/dislike.
I agree that there are many biases within the media. Something that I believe is important is that there is biases within journalism regardless of political parties. On page 455, the author states “…since journalists are primarily story tellers and not objective scientists, searching for liberal or conservative bias should not be the main focus of our media criticism.” This is important to understand because any story reported by journalists can be considered biased because of the many protocols they have to follow when selecting a story to cover.
One thing that I found interesting from the podcast was when they said “…the press is making a mistake by focusing on the candidates and not a lot of attention to what is going on in the country.” I also find it very ironic that the media is so enthralled with Donald Trump, yet he is the one who is having the most trouble with them than any other president.
“37 percent of Americans see a great deal of potential bias in the media (Media and Culture, pg 455).” This quote specifies how serious fake news can be inside of the US, as a whole. This is dangerous inside of the society we live in today because media is a huge aspect of the American culture. With individuals that distrust the media will cause problems like riots, and other conflicts. It is vital that individuals are given thew real facts of certain topics so that they are not being mislead about important information. If 37% of the American people believe there is bias in the media, Americans need to reevaluate what we allow in our society. If people are displeased with the dishonesty and lack of integrity from a huge media source, people with the issue needs to stand together and do what they can to finally make change.
The “Bias in the News” article argues about blaming the media for being bias. I agree that Reporters do have selective hearing when it comes to certain words or images that they get from the speaker. On page 455 it talks about “Journalists favor story-telling with plenty of drama and conflict, telling only two sides of the story.” The goal for News Reporters and Journalists are to sell out their stories through newspapers and Local TV News. In the Podcast, Trump made a statement that the Press reports negativity about him instead of reporting anything positive about him. In my opinion the Press reports negativity about him, just so they can feed on information to the Trump haters. Journalists are going to be biased in their stories no matter what. That’s how they get the audiences attention.
I agree bias is everywhere just like the media. “It is the media’s responsibility to report the good and the bad”(WNYC Pod Cost) but I believe it is our responsibility to see where the source is coming from and if it is credible. I really thin Fox news is very bias toward the republican party and NBC and CNN more fair to the public because of my beliefs. I also tend to find something more in my belief range. Media should only post facts and pose a question about their bias. I think is why we have a lot of negativity between the media and Mr. Trump because he went after the press and threatened certain Media for their reports so its only in nature that they defend their credibility and honor. It is also very bias when 2/3 of Trump’s presidency is being heard from his mouth which is bias. The press is not fair when it comes to reporting when things go wrong vs when they go right I agree that they should be more balanced because this is a way to win the public trust especially when bias is not felt in the reports
To say the media are biased is to say humans breath air. How much that bias has infected reporting is the problem. The “Bias in the News” case study (p. 455 Media & Culture) presents a view that there is a balanced amount of bias in the media, which would likely hold true before the polarization of the media under President Obama’s administration and now Trump’s. The study cites a 2014 Pew Research poll on the distrust of news sources. The Pew poll uses six news networks, three of which are dedicated to a 24 hour news cycle, while also using three opinion shows that utilize the news of the day and one comedy program that satirizes the news. That hardly seems like a balanced view of the media.
The coverage of the presidential race was like nothing before partially because of the unusual circumstances of both candidates and how they got there, as well as their high profiles which drove the news cycles more often than not. President Trump forced coverage, much of it negative, with his inability to stop talking or tweeting. The news media failed the people however by taking the bait and not forcing the coverage of issues that mattered to Americans who didn’t dwell tin the blue bubbles of the news networks.
“If you look at all presidential nominees since Reagan and their coverage during the general election, Democratic and Republican, all but Barack Obama in 2008 received, on balance, negative coverage,” Thomas E. Patterson said in the OTM podcast. He was talking about the media coverage and that it tends to run negative. Another saying commonly used in reference to the media is, “If it bleeds, it leads.” This has become the case in political reporting; if the opposing side can be hurt report it, if they can’t bury it.
The media have allowed themselves to reside not in a bubble but a fortress of their own making where groupthink is the rule and all dissenting thought must be made to heel or leave. The problem with this is that accuracy and truth become a matter of consensus not objectivity. Most of the national media chooses not to report on things that matter to news consumers in the heartland or the west but to those that live in the coastal regions. This has become the crux of the media bias problem.
Bias in and of itself isn’t an issue; pretending that a news source has been truly objective when there is clear bias is.
Media bias is very prevalent in our society today. I believe a lot of it has to do with the fact that the bad things reporters may say about someone, for example, President Trump, become more talked about then any good they might say. America thrives on drama. When Thomas E. Patterson was discussing the topic of Trump’s presidency in the OTM Podcast he stated, “The coverage of the first 100 days broke 80% negative to 20% positive.” He goes on to say, “Before Trump, the president who, in the first 100 days , had the worst coverage was Bill Clinton. His was 60% negative to 40% positive.” I believe that the fact President Clinton, who we all know had his fair share of scandals, has more positive remarks made about him then Trump not only proves bias but proofs that the media is bias towards the left.
I agree that there is a lot of bias when it comes to news. Whether is from the politicians themselves or the journalists either way these 2 have created a complete shit show to the point where many people no longer want to view or even hear about it.
Now days all we hear is this endless fight between the journalists and politicians, for example, Trump being one of the most hated presidents, yet he is the one who had put himself into this situation. just like (Bob Garfield said ) “It’s likely no other president has so blamed the messenger for his own travails, but if we’re just talking about the sheer negativity of Trump’s coverage, well, that he got exactly right.” always accusing the press of his own failures. In fact many times politicians have picked on the journalists because they were easy targets, seldom to defend themselves against political attacks. “During the 2016 presidential election, GOP nominee Donald Trump took his tactic to new heights, at one time or another banning the Huffington Post, BuzzFeed News, Mother Jones, Gawker, Univision, the Des Moines Register, Politico, the Washington Post, and even the conservative National Review from direct access to him or his staff.”(p.455)
On the other hand we have the journalists, the people we have entrusted to provide us with facts and news about our world. well all of that just turned into a big bias argument against the politicians and fake news created by those arguments. we can no longer tell what is the facts and what is just another made up story in the fight against the politicians.
What are we to do in this situation, wait and watch, soon one other other side will realize that no one is listening.
Bias in the News
Totally agree that there is some form of bias in the news. As for these two political candidates it was so hard to filter through so much BS that both seemed to dish out. I will admit here I did not vote either one, I picked libertarian party. I know that can make me the bad guy here, but so be it. With all the course this semester it is fascinating to know that when news was being reported it was bias or more unless opinion. Then journalist started to have a bit more standards on reporting the news in fact base, however, depending on their opinion it could be construed as bias. Trump (and I might make some people here upset) is a showman, a carnival act, the ring leader, over-bloated windbag, and do not get me started on Hillary. Though, saying that, I think he used the news media to make the general public think more about how news is reported. Trump was able to get more sound bites than Hillary. So, he used the media to his advantage by boosting fake news. In the case study “For example, in a 2014 Pew study, 37 percent of those interviewed reported distrusting Fox News” (p. 455) I also like this from the case study, “However, since journalists are primarily storytellers and not objective scientists, searching for liberal or conservative bias should not be the main focus of our media criticism”. (p.455)
“Hillary had more negative coverage than Trump (Podcast).” and “37 percent of Americans see a great deal of potential bias in the media (Media and Culture, pg 455).” I use these quotes here to give an underlining of how fake news is being proposed in today’s society. I hope that we all can agree, with or without Trump, fake news exist like TMZ. However, in Donald’s case, fake news has now spread to everything that isn’t Fox news and that has spoken poorly of him. Fake news has now been thrown out of proportion because someone doesn’t like what the press says. CNN did the pee tapes and suffered, NBC covered Rex Tillerson calling Trump a F***ing moron and now most conservatives don’t trust them. To them, the definition of fake news is when the press cover something negative to you or something you don’t like rather than simply being FAKE NEWS. Whether you are a conservative or not, facts should take priority over your opinion. Hell, maybe it relates to the definition of the word conservative, according to the textbook; dispose to provide existing traditions.
“Compared to what’s normal for a president, he got three times as much coverage. So the press can’t seem to get enough of Donald Trump, even though Donald Trump, for his part, certainly goes after the press at every opportunity.” (Thomas E. Patterson – OTM Podcast)
There is no denying that whether we like the man or not, President Trump has been the headliner and the underlying subject on almost all media platforms. With all the hate and nasty comments thrown at Trump since his election, it is almost shocking that we call him our president. If one reflects on all of the bad press he has received, things just don’t quite seem to add up.
Granted, as the authors of the media and Society textbook have stated, “all news is biased to some degree.” (Campbell, Richard) And is is generally accepted that the typical journalist is a raging liberal, ranting about the despicable actions of our president. -or not-. All of the hate that Trump has received via mass news outlets stem from a fear and a general uneasiness about the state of our great country. Liberal or republican we must all be using our voices to make a different in America. Perhaps, there are better outlets than Twitter?
The trend of sharing news about politicians has become vastly popular since the last election. It seems like media is taking over the world of politicians. In the textbook it said, “Most research shows that people support news media outlets that seem to affirm their existing values and political leanings.” (Campbell, Richard; Fabos, Bettina; Martin, R Christopher) When the latest election occurred, many things were being said about Trump and Hillary rather it was true or not and society listened to the bias news. Many people didn’t watch the news, they heard from the media bad things about each candidate and chose who sounded the most appealing. Bias news is a big issue that many never be solved. Writers publish for the interest of society, so some of their content may be true. Ideas come media, and society believes every word that’s heard. In the podcast President Trump mentioned, “No politician in history… has been treated worst or more unfairly.” (Thomas E. Patterson-OTM, 0.58) Media has thrown so much bias information about our last election. In the podcast, Trump explains how he feels attacked by the media, but Trump also tampers with media, giving them reasons to write. Many people today only focus on the bad than the good, but it’s hard to trust what you hear from the media because it could be bias. Everyone is just reading a bunch of opinions made instead of reading facts.
It is hard to avoid bias in the media, and especially in the media about politics currently. In the OTM podcast, it is stated that reporters tend to, ” Report on bad weather, not good weather,” which shows humans tendency to give more attention to the bad versus the good. There is under reporting of positives and over reporting on the negatives. According to the case study in the text book, in 2012 37% of Americans see, “a great deal of political bias,” in the news, which is up from 31% in 2000, and 25? in 1998. Like the blog explains, nearly 90 % of all internet publishing employees work in a county where Clinton won, and 75 % of them work in a county that she won by more than 30 % points.
“Let’s acknowledge up front that all news is biased to some degree” (Campbell, Richard; Christopher, R. Martin; Bettina Fabos). There’s never been any question about this. Although I’m not very involved in politics, I can say with certainty that I know who Donald Trump is and what people my age typically think of him. However, as I do admit that I am not very familiar with politics, others will not. They think because they’ve read tweets and a few articles online, they know what they’re talking about when they’re really just mimicking the bias ideas of others.
“Compared to what’s normal for a president, he got three times as much coverage. So the press can’t seem to get enough of Donald Trump, even though Donald Trump, for his part, certainly goes after the press at every opportunity” (Thomas E. Patterson – OTM Podcast). I really don’t think people grasp the concept that they’re being spoon-fed thoughts and ideas directly from the media. America is a lot more involved in this presidency than they were the past few years, and the media is to blame for that. People who normally have no interest in politics are suddenly claiming they hate Trump. Why? Because that’s what they’re reading online. In one of my past classes, we learned that reading tweets on a show before you’ve finished the episode can disrupt your own thoughts because you’re reading the opinions and reactions of so many others that you don’t have the capability to form your own.
I definitely think this is one of the negative impacts of media.
I think that there is definitely a bias in the media as stated by Bob Garfield in the OTM podcast, “The coverage of the first 100 days broke 80% negative to 20% positive.” In this particular quote he was referring to our current president Donald Trump. The podcast goes on to say, ” Before Trump, the president who, in the first 100 days, had the worst coverage was Bill Clinton. His was 60% negative to 40% positive. So Trump is pretty much in an atmosphere that hasn’t been touched before.” While this is true, an article done my Mark Moore of the New York Post states, “-only 38 percent of Americans have a favorable rating, or trust Donald Trump, so that might explain some of those statistics.
I think “Bias news” is unavoidable. Always, editors are thinking and worry about what readers want and like to read. “Bias in the News” give a example “In a 2014 Pew study, 37 percent of those interviewed reported distrusting Fox News; however, that figure rode to 81 percent among respondents who self-identified as ‘consistently liberal’ but was only 7 percent among respondents who identified as ‘consistently conservative.'” Exactly, after someone cover and ignore some important but can not published new, the editor want to find another way to attract audience. Like what happen in the last year. “The press, I think, is making a mistake that have made during the election, focusing too much on the candidates and not paying a lot of attention to what was going on out in the country.”(too much of a bad thing) News and people are pay their attention on the candidates which they are interested in but not on the country.
Works Cited:
Campbell, Richard. Media & Culture 10. bedford/st.matin’s.
wnyc, http://www.wnyc.org/story/too-much-bad-thing.
Bias In The News
This issue is a very complicated one with many caveats. But Trump saw the problems in the system of reporting being a check and balance for politics. Media distrust is at an all time low which leads people to gravitate toward news outlets that support their views. How could they be wrong when I agree with them? Most people don’t want to live with the cognitive dissonance caused by being wrong, or even hearing and considering opposing points of view.
The OTM podcast and the Bias in the News article brought up a good point. The media runs on negative stories. Negative goings on in the world simply make for better storytelling. For what is at the heart of human storytelling other than conflict?
“The coverage of the first 100 days broke 80% negative to 20% positive. Before Trump, the president who, in the first 100 days, had the worst coverage was Bill Clinton… The press can’t seem to get enough of Donald Trump.” (OTM Podcast Thomas E Patterson)
“…most reporters follow the routine practices of their profession, which call on them to moderate their own political agendas. Still, news reports will always contain elements of bias, given the human imperfection in storytelling and in communicating through the lenses of language, images, and institutional value.” (Bias in the News, Richard Campbell)
The relationship between these two dynamics is what interests me about Trump. It seems to me Trump knows these things very well. In fact I think he has planned for his candidacy to be this way very well. He knows that there are biased news outlets and that their influence and prevalence is exaggerated and a huge point of modern contention. I think Trump used that to gain a loyal following from one side by condemning the other. Trump played right into the philosophical cognitive fallacy of “the other.” We are the Republicans. Screw the Democrats. They are the enemy, they write biased stories about me because they don’t like me. With the following Trump has garnered, his supporters become fans. His disgrace is theirs. And the crippled state of the main checks and balances system that is the news only ensured, and continues to ensure, his success.
Works Cited:
wnyc, http://www.wnyc.org/story/too-much-bad-thing
Campbell, Richard. Media & Culture 10. bedford/st.matin’s. Print.
“Now, Trump supporters and I think the GOP, in general, and this goes back decades, have been quick to assert a liberal bias”- Bob Garfield, OTM Podcast. Bob Garfield states that the GOP have always asserted their liberal biases. in the case study, ‘Bias in the news’, the author states that, 49% of republicans had a bias, 32% of Democrats had a bias and 35% of independents had one.
I think there is somewhat of a bias in the media when you count how many different, niche market news groups have formed over the past ten years, all with their own perspectives and agenda. I think that they’ve tapped into the access that internet gives them so they have a huge audience, potentially all over the world. I believe that many of these new media also take advantage that their audience will sometimes blindly share information having little clue if it’s correct and true. They do so understandably when the news they share happens to agree with how they believe life and reality should be. Listening to the OTM podcast, I agreed with Shorenstein Center’s Thomas E. Patterson and for about two years, I observed how Donald Trump rode the waves of division, dislike for muslims, American uncertainty and distrust of the media. Many people observed how he did it, and it was timed very well and went full-on, no holds barred. Yes, I agree many people thought Hillary Clinton was a lock for President, but she wasn’t aggresive enough in the last few days, when she needed to be and never really campaigned in red states, even if it was probably going to Republicans, she should have been a lot more aggressive candidate in the red states. And I think the left-leaning media overlooked how voters felt when it was revealed how she and the DNC / Bernie Sanders fiasco. And, while Donald Trump has a lot of negativity around him, fact is Republicans get out there and vote.
Works Cited:
wnyc, http://www.wnyc.org/story/too-much-bad-thing
Campbell, Richard. Media & Culture 10. bedford/st.matin’s. Print.
Bias in today’s society is a heavily controversial subject, as not many Americans can see past the bias, and refuse to allow their beliefs to be challenged when confronted with alternative opinions. “37 percent of Americans see a great deal of potential bias in the media” (Media and Culture, pg 455) is a quote that is alarming because of how large of a population there is that truly believes everything that they are being told. If Americans are to truly evolve to a state of truthfulness and integrity, then all of us have to be media literate, as well as understanding exactly what the other side of the argument may entail. The key to having faith in your own beliefs is to be able to defend them when confronted with opposing knowledge you already are aware of. Journalists and broadcast journalism is an element driven with revenue. For those who seek for truth for the American people, the print media is one of the only sources of reliable information for those who can’t discern bias.
Media Bias plays a big role in the “Group Think” mentality. Especially in politics. On page 484 of the textbook, “Media & Culture” a table shows that in 2012 nearly 40% of people felt there was a great deal of political bias in the news. During the elections this past year, Donald Trump even tried to highlight the bias the media had against him. He also used the medias negative coverage of other issues, such as Muslims in America, to take advantage of group thinking and use it in his favor. But as mentioned in the OTM Podcast “Too Much of Bad Thing” how do you determine what is negative news or bias, or if it’s just reporting what you see.
There is good and bad attention, but no matter what it keeps peoples attention. For example in the 2016 presidential election the media followed and reported on Donald Trump personally and almost never about the policies and reforms that were also on the ballot. Having that news biased the election became a popularity contest and Hilary Clinton lost because she was drowned out by the news biased of Donald Trump.
I think it makes a lot of sense that most people assume the mainstream news leans toward a more liberal stand point. Given that there is statistical proof of this according to a 2004 Pew Research Center survey. “34 percent of national journalists self-identify as liberal, 7 percent as conservative, and 54 percent as moderate (R.Campbell, C.R. Martin, and B. Fabos).” Since journalists are story tellers, it definitely leaves room for some type of bias in the news even if that is not the intent. In the OTM podcast, Too Much of a Bad Thing, it discusses how there has been so much negativity about the Trump administration and questions if it is because of media bias or because it is self-inflicted from Trump’s own self-fulfilling prophecy and narratives. It also discusses how the media should report on positive reports as well and not only the negative. I can agree that there has been a lot of over-reporting on certain topics and less on others which diverts our attention and has also lead negative perceptions on what is going on in the country.
As quoted in the Case Study: Bias in the News (pg. 484), “All new is biased.” This may be a hard pill to swallow, but it is true. No matter how hard journalists work to tell both sides of the story and remove both their personal bias, they are still affected by the people around them. In the end, these news companies are really only concerned with making money. If the public does not agree with the news being written, they will stop reading it. It is just our self-fulfilling prophecy to find information that coincides with our opinions and then roll with it. So, if giving the people what they want to hear will make more money, that is how it will be.
It is possible that today’s journalists are feeling attacked by Donald Trump, and so format the news about him in a particular way. Thomas Patterson (On The Media: Too Much of a Bad Thing) states that, “I think there could be a tendency for journalists to think that they’re at war with the president. And to the degree that they see themselves as the opposition, I think they’re headed for trouble.” As humans, we naturally feel the need to defend ourselves any time that we are threatened. Perhaps this is the case of journalists today. Although, this article mentions that, “More than ever, national journalists are more highly educated…” With the rise of the Internet and social media, citizens today perhaps have a greater understanding of everyone’s opinions. If they are constantly exposed to opinions that oppose their own and still choose a side, could it be that they know something we don’t? Is it possible that these individuals have a little more insight today than they did in the past and are able to recognize that things are not right?
Unfortunately, journalists are inevitably going to be at fault; but I feel that we really need to take a look at the rest of the population and their views before we criticize journalists and say that they are “stuck in a bubble”.
In the textbook, it states, “..journalists favor storytelling with plenty of drama and conflict,” (“Bias in the News”, 455). Although it might me very entertaining to read what journalists have to say, it doesn’t mean it’s all true. Most journalists are only there for the money and will say more just to make people want to read it regardless if its true or not. In the OTM podcast, Patterson states, “…press is too critical, under-reporting the positive developments, over-reporting the negative” (On Media; Too Much of a Bad Thing). This further emphasizes the fact that our news that journalists make are biased and they are only trying to say what people want to hear and what will excite people.
I believe there is no way to truly get unbiased media. It is the job of the media to attract viewers and audiences with the information that they release, which means that the press must release information in a way that appeals to the masses or creates controversy. For example, Bob Garfield in the On The Media podcast stated, “The coverage of the first 100 days broke 80% negative to 20% positive… Compared to what’s normal for a president, he got three times as much coverage. So the press can’t seem to get enough of Donald Trump even though Donald Trump, for his part, certainly goes after the press at every opportunity”. This is proof that the media recognizes that the negative content over the President is worth purchasing, viewing, or watching and makes it a point to release that type of content. Generalizing, most journalists are just trying to sell a story which can cause the truth to get manipulated. This does not mean that these journalists are flat out lying or even intentionally doing this; however, it does not change that fact that the truth is different depending on who it comes from. There is an “… erosion of trust… where fake news and lies can thrive” (Ebersole) in biased journalism.