Should the mainstream media be non-biased?

[Fly320s]

Over the last two years or so, I have noticed more people complaining that the MSM is biased to some degree.  Do you think that the media is biased?  If so, do you think that the media should be non-biased?

My opinion:  Most newspapers and television stations are privately owned.  As privately owned companies (heck, even as a publicly-traded company) they are entitled to run their companies in a manner that will maximize their profits.  I.e: if catering to a leftist political agenda will allow the NY Times to sell more advertising space at a higher price, then more power to them.

Basically, I don't care if a news source is biased.  All I ask is that the company has the integrity to stand up in public and admit that they are biased.  

Your thoughts?

[drewtam]

This question probes around a more fundemental question. Libertarian ideas are based on personal freedom above all other consideration. And for the most part I agree, but I draw a line on dishonesty, greed, etc. Hardcore libertarians might say that greed is good, or not so bad. It is one of the ideas of that party that I strongly disagree with.

So as my answer applies to your question, they ought to be free to say anything they want. But they ought to be honest to all with whatever bias, or assumptions, or worldview they hold to. The freedom to say or not say anything (whether admitting bias or not) should not be taken as opportunity to do evil.

The rub is this; to be honest, to be moral, occasionally depends on opinion and always depends on the heart of mankind. No law can force a changing of the heart. The best law will only be able to expose a heart, not repair a conscience.




Finally, it is impossible to be non-biased. We are finite in knowledge and are mortal.

Drew

[charby]

Back in 1934 when Federal Communication Act was made law in a nutshell was determined that the airways were public property and the broadcasters need to keep in the interest of the public. This is one of the reasons why you don't see porn on ABC during prime time. It basically hold broadcasters to the standards of the community.

Well the media is supposed to be the Fourth Estate, the ones to inform the masses that the government is doing wrong to its people, so yes they need to be biased.

I think that news needs to be presented unbiased so the real story is reported, but I think that the rest of the mainstream media can be biased as much as it wants to be as long as they let people know that they are.

Remember we all have a choice in what we watch, read or listen too, we don't need the government stepping in and telling the mainstream media how they need to present material.

-C

[Monkeyleg]

Fly320s, I think it's pretty much impossible for an individual to not interject his/her bias into a subject.

I've done many radio/TV/newspaper interviews over the last five years, but it's been almost impossible for me to not put my slant on my comments.

The problem with the major networks is that they don't have just one or two guys like you or me mucking up the works: it's the entire network.

And that's where the credibility falls apart.

And, no, Fox News is not above that.

The term "yellow journalism" dates back to the early 20th century, when tabloid newspapers ran stories about this or that politican, and usually to the favor of the editorial slant of the newspapers' editors.

The old journalists' code of "who, when, and where" seems to be have been replaced by "what weapon (doesn't matter if it was a Remington 1187 or an Uzi, since the cops don't know the difference); was he bullied or taunted at school; and what measures will your department take to prevent other psycho's from randomly targetting students?"


The bias has always been there. What seems to be happening is that the bias is more blatent, more in your face, and that the perpetrators of such bias are less apologetic.

[Fly320s]

I'll agree that it is impossible to have an objective/unbiased human viewpoint.  Because of that the entire company or network is also tainted.  But, is there any requirement, either written or understood, that requires a media source to be unbiased?

All that I ask of the media outlets is to have the balls to stand up and say that they are biased.

[Monkeyleg]

But, is there any requirement, either written or understood, that requires a media source to be unbiased?

All that I ask of the media outlets is to have the balls to stand up and say that they are biased.

Fly320s, exactly which government alphabet agency would you assign the task of determining "bias" to?

And, for that matter, what constitutes "bias?"

Fox News--like it or not--has taken a big share of the market from CBS, NBC, and ABC.

All of them have their biases. So, it falls upon you--the citizen--to separate the wheat from the chaf, and arrive at your own educated opinion.

[Finch]

The MSM can be what ever they want, they are a corporation that is free to do as it decides. The people who watch though should be smart enough to decide what is B.S. and what has some merit to it.

[Dannyboy]

Basically, I don't care if a news source is biased.  All I ask is that the company has the integrity to stand up in public and admit that they are biased.

That's it, right there.  Don't give one side a pass while denigrating the other for a similar offense and then turn around and say that you're not biased.  Be biased, that's fine.  Just don't pretend you're not.

[Fly320s]

Dannyboy, exactly.  Thank you for understanding.

For the record, I am not complaining about a biased media.  I am complaining about those people who complain about a biased media.  Some people think that a newspaper or TV network news show should be objective and balanced.  Those same people are mad that a news source has a definite bias and that "the government" isn't doing anything to fix it.

But, as Monkeyleg said, which government agency would be the watchdogs?  None, hopefully.  I don't want to regulate the media.  I would like to inject more integrity, honesty, and personal responsibility into the human race.

[Perd Hapley]

Who is seeking to use the government to correct media bias?  I haven't seen that.  

The problem with the media today is not bias, per se, but that the bias, for decades, has been almost completely in one direction, backed up powerfully by the bias of academia.  Even right-wing talk radio is affected by it, as talk radio typically only defends the right from the attacks of the leftist press.  This is why they are accused of being GOP apologists, Bush apologists, etc.  An apologist is one who defends.  The result of this is that talk radio may put their slant on issues, but they are usually only talking about the issues that the MSM has already put on the agenda.  This is why talk radio has been exclusively a Mark Foley zone this past week, rather than discussing the threat of Iran or the failings of Democrats in the area of national security, etc.  

Scholars of American history have no doubt which newspapers in past eras were party organs.  News will always be biased.  But the current news media has been widely accused of leftist bias for at least two decades and are only now beginning to come close to admitting it.  The media would begin to correct its problem, if journalists would see that other educated people have a point of view that differs from theirs.  If they would see how their view of the world might color their reporting of political events, they could report more accurately.  

Everyone has some bias, but if we can admit that bias, we can see where we might be letting our bias mislead us and others.  Bias is not just a case of giving your point of view.  Sometimes, it is a matter of lying to oneself and painting an inaccurate picture of what is actually happening.  The old-line media seeems unwilling to admit this, and perhaps not even capable of it.

[CAnnoneer]

If enough people would learn to think on their own and examine issues critically, any media bias would not be nearly so damaging. The problem is that most people are intellectually lazy and incurious to the extreme. Media garbage is just another form of product they consume non-critically. Furthermore, the most impressionable and inexperienced section of the population, the non-adults, are the ones fed right into the teeth of liberal teachers where their indoctrination in neosocialism starts only to blossom later in college. The combination of media and educators shape the new generations and thus shape the political spectrum of the present and future.

To mitigate such onslaught, it is the responsibility of every parent to provide alternative points of view and thereby develop their children's ability for critical thinking. Then and only then would neosocialism stand no chance of success. But good parenting is out of fashion as well, thereby compounding the problem. Incidentally, it is interesting to observe how neosocialism seems to desire to take over the raising of children from their parents at least partially. Coincidence?

Furthermore, perception becomes reality. If 90% of the media outlets are leftist/liberal, politicians have to take that into account in a calculation of their best positioning. Somebody buys the ragmags, and so one might expect a correlating distribution of voters or at least general sentiment. And so the system is autocatalytic.

Finally, the media do not say "this is my opinion only". They tend to imply "this is reality because we are objective." A weak reader naturally feels the strong tribal pressure to conform to the majority, as exemplified by the mood of popular media outlets.

My primary hope for a more balanced look is that more people spend more time on the internet, learn to think on their own, and make up their own minds. Of that, traditional media should be scared, and they are terrified.

[Art Eatman]

One thing I've noticed is an apparent inability to recognize bias in oneself.  Some reporter will write an obviously biased piece, and if you say anything about bias they're totally puzzlied at the accusation.  For many, in their own mind they're objective.

There is way too much use of emotionally-loaded words in what are supposed to be straight news articles.  This cannot help but reflect some sort of bias, of interpretation of facts instead of merely relating the facts.  IOW, a news article becomes in part an editorial.

There is a human-nature aspect:  A reasonably accurate generality is that people who are innately somewhat conservative in their views tend toward the hard sciences.  Those who are innately somewhat liberal tend toward the Liberal Arts colleges--including Journalism School.  This notion of mine is borne out in part by the fact that over 80% of journalists are registered Democrats.  86% in the Washington press corps.

Art

[LAK]

Media is always going to be biased; in the context of story choice, reporting style, presentation and editorial control etc. In the case of the syndicated networks and press count on them to act overall in the interests of the ruling oligarchy - regardless of which of the two "parties" dominate Washington at any one given time.

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http://ussliberty.org
http://ssunitedstates.org

[doczinn]

If enough people would learn to think on their own and examine issues critically, any media bias would not be nearly so damaging. The problem is that most people are intellectually lazy and incurious to the extreme.

Well, I was gonna say that, but you did so....

+1


Read/watch their editorials; you'll see where their bias is. Then read/watch the rest with the appropriate filter on.

[Perd Hapley]

Listen to NPR/PRI's comedy shows on Saturday morning.  That's when they let their hair down and really show or even explicitly admit their bias.  I've heard them at least once acknowledge the political slant of their audience.

[HankB]

Putting a slant on news stories is one thing - all human beings have SOME inherent bias - but consider these examples:

* Brokaw, when reporting about "semi-automatic assault weapons" showed video of machineguns being fired. The NRA and others called him on this, and NBC acknowledged the error, but did not issue a retraction. Instead, a couple of weeks later, knowing full well what they were doing was dishonest, they did the SAME thing again.

* Brokaw & company reported on exploding GM pickups. They decided to show how dangerous they were by overfilling the tank, replacing the gas cap with one of their own, and then, just to be sure, they fitted the example truck with a remotely detonated incendiary device.

* Dan Rather at CBS used forged documents from a dead man in an obvious attempt to influence a presidential election.

* Note the carelessness and reckless disregard for the truth displayed by virtually ALL the dominant media in the case of Richard Jewell.

These, and other, examples show that large parts of the so-called mainstream media have gone FAR beyond bias, and into deliberate manipulation and manufacture of the news, including outright falsification.

Since these people are using the public airways, it should be made easier to sue - and prevail! - against them in civil court when what they report is demonstrably false.

[The Rabbi]

Our concern with "unbiased" reporting I suspect meets with some amusement overseas.  In Europe every paper or news outlet is biased, and everyone knows that.  So the Telegraph caters to one kind of audience while the Times serves a different one.  All the papers are biased, just in their word choice and how they choose to place stories on the front page.
As for integrity, it is the coin of the realm.  Yes, news outlets have fabricated some news but look how quickly that was spotted in the blogosphere.  Those outlets lost credibility and thus lost readership.

[Perd Hapley]

Rabbi,
 
If the right wing media were as numerous as the leftist, and were accorded the same respect, that would be acceptable.  That's why we are so concerned about it.

Limbaugh et al don't really balance the leftist bias, because they are dismissed as non-serious and overly partisan.  The Wall Street Journal doesn't begin to balance all the big-time leftist papers and you can forget about Rev. Moon's paper.  One might think there is some parity in the glossy magazines, but the "centrist" magazines are really left-wing, even the entertainment rags.

[Iain]

I take it we've all noticed the THR L&P poll on this subject?

I did giggle a little.

[The Rabbi]

Rabbi,
 
If the right wing media were as numerous as the leftist, and were accorded the same respect, that would be acceptable.  That's why we are so concerned about it.

Limbaugh et al don't really balance the leftist bias, because they are dismissed as non-serious and overly partisan.  The Wall Street Journal doesn't begin to balance all the big-time leftist papers and you can forget about Rev. Moon's paper.  One might think there is some parity in the glossy magazines, but the "centrist" magazines are really left-wing, even the entertainment rags.

You've actually identified MSM's biggest concern: people are getting less and less of their news from their channels and more and more from e.g. Drudge, Limbaugh, etc.
And the WSJ is not immune to leftist bias: I have seen articles in the paper that were then contradicted by editorials.  They have separate editors and staffs for each section.

[roo_ster]

Should the MSM be non-biased?

Well, they say they are non-biased.  In that case, I suppose that they ought to live up to their assertion.  Not doing so would be the equivalent of making fraudulent claims about one's product.  The NYT motto is, "All the news fit to print," not "All the news that can stick it to Chimpy Bushitler."  

OTOH, I would not mind if MSM components were honest about their biases.  For instance, I don't get upset about a lefty biased article in The Nation, since it is open about its agenda and biases.  The same article in the NYT or on abcnbccbscnnfox would get my dander up.

I suppose the hardcore libertarian types might oppose an honesty in advertising standard as an impediment to free speech.  I think I would disagree.  Just as I want to know the actual contents of Spam, I want a reliable guide to the content of newsrags.  The free market is, in its essence, a market in information*.  Flooding the market with disinformation makes the entire market weaker and a less-reliable means of determining value.

* Shameless FA Hayek ripoff.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

How can you trust a source to report the news accurately when you know they're lying to you about their political bias?  The worst offenders (CBS, CNN, NY Times, BBC) downright insult your intelligence when they claim they aren't biased towards extreme leftism and statism.

I don't care they they're biased, but I do care that they lie about it.  There aren't many aspects of a media news report that the viewer/reader can indepedently verify, and political bias is one of them.  If they won't be honest about the things I can check for myself, how honest can I expect them to be when they're reporting things I can't check for myself?