Daily Grind - Cross-pressures on journalists
Bias in journalism is the result of many factors, not the cause
Very short post today in order to keep the habit going.
Part of my day job is teaching journalism at the local community college. Today I delivered my lecture/discussion on bias in journalism. I’ve always felt it’s just best to get this conversation out of the way early in the semester. Enjoy a PDF of the slides I put together for the class.
The upshots
While some biases are well-known to the public - the tendency of journalists to be liberal; journalists are humans with opinions, values, etc. - others are less well-understood by the public.
Some examples:
How commercial pressure warps news coverage in order to attract and keep an audience that can be monetized (aka, audience capture)
How journalists rarely question the fundamental values of the society in which they live. Al Qaeda, communism, and Nazis are not going to get “fair”, “unbiased” treatment in Western media, for example.
How the practices of journalism - like pursuing conflict and novelty, while on deadline - can lead to a distorted view of the world
Finally, people often talk about “the media”. There is no “the media”. There are only many different media outlets, all locked in fierce competition to win audience and keep it, so they can sell that audience to advertisers or make money in some other way off of them. Otherwise, they go bankrupt. Game over.
In a similar vein - if you see a media outlet as “biased”, it’s highly likely you’re not the audience. If you see it as “unbiased”, you’re likely the intended audience.
That said, “real” journalists still strive to be accurate, fair-minded, accountable, and independent. Sure, they often fail. But the values and the pursuit of them remain the same, despite the various pressures.