Media Bias; A Reminder

 

Today is time for a couple of reminders.  Particularly regarding media bias and our responsibilities.  This will be of a great import over the next couple of months, as we get closer and closer to perhaps one of the most important elections of our lifetimes.

Both charts are designed to be aids in our personal navigation of the news and the world around us.  Designed for how we process information and how we do it better.

The chart above is an updated version of the Media Bias chart.  It can be found here.  The idea is to prefer to obtain news primarily from sources in the green box.  The Most Reliable news sources.  Or at least to recognize the bias of the news organization when you uses sources lower down and farther to the sides.

Likewise, the following infographic is a reminder on our own responsibility to check the information that you are receiving.  To do your own research, still a truth worth sharing no matter how much it has been misused and abused by Q and his followers in QAnon.

The goal of both images is not to shame us for falling into the traps of less reputable news.  The goal is to help us move to information more trustworthy.  To help us share more truthful information.  To help us believe more truthful information.

It is for us to change, to grow, and to improve.

What should be the goal for us all.

Keep America Purple

Over the next couple of weeks, there will likely be several posts in this vein.  With the mid-term election coming up, we need every reminder possible to get people to the polls to vote.  Voter turnout in the 2014 mid-term election was only 36.4%, the lowest it had been since 1942, despite having the highest spend up to that point ($3.7 billion).

So again, vote.

Early voting is currently underway - take that opportunity if you can.   If not, get to the polls on Tuesday, November 6, 2018.

And no matter what anyone tells you, do NOT vote straight party anything.  That's just bad advice.  Plain and simple.

No one party automatically has all the best candidates for their particular district, region, or state.  No one party has all the best policies for governance.  Read up on the candidates and vote for those that best represent you regardless of what little letter follows their name on the ballot.

There is a world of resources on the web to find out information on the candidates and issues on your ballot, including the two below.

Ontheissues.org

VoteSmart.org

There are literally hundreds of resources out there and a breadth of information available at your finger tips.

Because here is the truth - we need each other.  We need both parties, Democrats and Republicans.  We need progressives and we need conservatives.  We need progressives to push us forward, to make us confront inequalities where they exist, and push us into new solutions.  To push us to change.  We also need conservatives to question changes so that we make the right ones, to fight for what is worth preserving, to remind us of our past.  We need the push and pull that holds us to our standards, but reminds us of reality.

Governing is supposed to be hard.  It's supposed to require compromise, to require consensus. We need governing bodies that are not all Democrats or not all Republicans.  The worst thing that could happen to our country would be unopposed control by one party of all three branches of government.  That way leads to the mantra "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."  We need for our legislative and executive bodies to need to work for their achievements.  To have to go across the aisle and reach agreements with the opposition.  True, we do not need obstruction, and that is where our current parties have gone astray.  But we do need vigorous debate and deliberation on the laws and policies that will govern our country.

We need a judicial branch that is impartial and will occasionally force us to move forward, whether the majority would vote for it or not.  We need their decisions like Brown v. the Board of Education or Lawrence v. Texas.

We need representatives in our government that truly reflect the diversity of our great country.  And we've got a long way to go in that regard.  While the current Congress has reached a new height of diversity, it remains as a whole is still disproportionately white and male.

And we need you to get out and vote.  We need to hear every citizen's voice.

Keep America Purple.  Because that is what accurately represents us.  

The Meaning of Words

"I don't know what you mean by 'glory'," Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously.  "Of course you don't - till I tell you.  I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"

"But 'glory' doesn't mean a 'nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "Whether you can make words mean different things - that's all."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."

My Constitutional Law professor used to quote this passage of Through The Looking Glass all the time.  When you control the meaning of words, you can do anything.  You can make up down, black white, and right wrong, just by changing the words.  This is the purview of Constitutional interpretation; to determine and define what the words in our laws and Constitution actually mean.

This is also the sad language of politics today.  Change the phrasing of the words and you can make any action or cause sound laudable or deplorable.  And I want to write today about something I'm seeing more frequently and something that is greatly angering me.

There's a terrible image going around on social media that sums up this sentiment greatly.  It represents a gross over-simplification of the state of political debate, at best, and outright falsities at it's worst.  It's a tool of the ever growing divide in this country, for as we know, one party just has to represent everything that is good with this country and the other just has to represent all the evils of this world.

In terms of truthfulness, this image rates right up there with the posts that point out the pure coincidence that both American and Republican end in "I CAN" while Democrats ends in "RATS".  The actual party name is the Democratic party (just as the GOP name is the Republican party), though I suppose "ATIC" does not work as well to denigrate the opposition.

To prove a point, let me show you another image, one that is just as true as the one above.

It's all in how you define the words.  Or in what words you choose to describe the particular topic.  Opposition to abortion can be "pro-life" or "anti-abortion."  A push for gun control can be "sensible gun control" or "they'll take away all your guns."  Both sides do it and it's getting worse.  If you actually believe that Democrats are all anti-police/ICE, I have a bridge in Arizona that I would like to sell you. Likewise if you believe that Republicans are all homophobic or xenophobic.

These images and the sentiment behind them are not helping our country in any way shape or form.  These posts and the ones claiming that our country will be socialist if the Democrats win or fascist if the Republicans win simply exist to further the divide in this country, ensuring that future elections and future debates will be more rancorous, more vile, and more fractured.

The only way we move past this is to recognize the manipulation in the images above and reject them.  To engage in a deeper discourse.  A deeper investigation.  And then to vote.

Get informed and vote November 6, 2018.  Vote early if you can.

Don't vote straight party - in my opinion, the ability to vote straight party with one selection on a ballot should be removed.  It's likely the most dangerous tool in politics that has been granted to both parties.

Read up on the candidates and vote for those that best represent you regardless of what little letter follows their name on the ballot.

There is a world of resources on the web to find out information on the candidates and issues on your ballot, including the two below.

Ontheissues.org

VoteSmart.org

There are literally hundreds of resources out there and a breadth of information available at your finger tips.  I realize I'm likely preaching to the choir, but a reminder never hurts.

Vote.

Not because it's the most important election of our lifetime.  Not because of some fear-based image that tries to make you believe the other side is going to destroy our country (they won't).

Vote because every election is that important.  Because every election matters.

Navigating Media Bias and Its Effects

This is a blog that I've been trying to put together for a while.  I had the what and how, but did not have the why beyond a very esoteric idea.  Then I ran across an article recently that put the why into perspective.

We all know the problem.  In this day and age, in the era of 24-hour news stations and the rise of opinion news, hot takes by nearly everyone on the internet, dis- and mis-information campaigns, "fake" news, clickbait headlines, trolling and bots, it is very difficult to find news and information sources that are reliable and trustworthy.  Even more difficult to find news sources that will give you facts alone that are not overloaded with opinion.  News sources that allow the viewer or the reader to reach their own opinions, instead of providing them for you.

To that end, I find it beneficial to rely back to a few sources to determine the particular bias or bent of a particular news source. One resource is the chart below, generated by an interested amateur, who explained and documented her methodology here.

The chart, at the very least, gives a quick overview of prominent news sources and where they fall in terms of depth of coverage and political/social bias.  Most of the news sources on the chart, at least in terms of where they fit in terms of bias should be recognizable.  It's no surprise that Fox News has a conservative bias and MSNBC has a liberal bias.  The question would be one of degree.  And this particular chart gets a little less helpful with nuance, particularly with the sources identified closer to the middle.

For a more in depth evaluation of bias, there are a couple of websites that are beneficial.

All Sides Media Bias Ratings (https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-ratings)

Media Bias/Fact Check (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/)

All Sides in particular separates out news and editorial divisions, so that news sources could get different ratings for each on bias.  For example, All Sides labes Fox News news division as lean right and its editorial division as far right.  (My comment - recognizing of course, in this day and age, it is getting harder and harder to separate news and editorial divisions).  For comparison, Media Bias labels Fox as hard right.

This can be a little more helpful in pinning down sources closer to the center, as to find a lean right or lean left bias.  There is disagreement among the different services, so it only represents a start, not a conclusion.

What's left is the why.  Why does this matter?  If I have found a news source that I like and feel I can trust, why is it important to know their bias?  And beyond broader calls for understanding across the spectrum, I ran across a study that someone had shared that brings this all into perspective. 

Business Insider ran an article on a study conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University based on a new PublicMind survey to determine the most informative sources of news.  Researcher's asked 1,185 random nationwide respondents what news sources they had consumed in the past week and then asked them questions about events in the United States and abroad.  On average, people correctly guessed answers to 1.6 of the 5 questions about domestic affairs, and 1.8 of the questions about international affairs.  They then broke the results out by the particular news sources relied upon by the participants.  The study seems to reveal that our most popular national media sources - Fox, CNN, MSNBC - seem to be the least informative.  In fact, participants who obtained their news chiefly from Fox fared worse in both sets of questions than participants who admitted to not watching the news at all.  MSNBC did not fare much better, also trailing behind those that watched no news at all in the international questions.

Fairleigh Dickinson University

Fairleigh Dickinson University

Now, the study is not perfect and should not be viewed as the ultimate arbiter of the value of these news sources.  We can point to questions regarding the size of the participant population, selection process, other factors affecting news absorption, and potential selection bias in the questions posed.  We can discuss how the study cannot truly point to causation and disheartening that even the highest average for a news source never reached 2 questions out of 5.  Still a failing grade.

But when viewed in context with the bias chart and bias determinations, we see a continuing refrain:

"Ideological news sources, like Fox and MSNBC, are really just talking to one audience.  This is solid evidence that if you're not in that audience, you're not going to get anything out of watching them."  It seems further evidence that even if you are in the target audience, you are not getting enough out of that news sources to keep you truly informed.

So, where to go from here?  The following would be my recommendations; take them for their worth:

• Learn the current bias - Investigate the bias of your favorite news sources and see if you are comfortable with it.  
• Read more - Find more than one news source that you are comfortable with.  In particular, find a news source that you like on the opposite end of the spectrum from your current one.  It doesn't have to be hard left to compete with hard right.  Even something that leans left if your typical news comes from right sources can help balance out the information that you are receiving.
• Look center - Follow agreed upon central news sources like the Associated Press, which supplies news to both sides.  Realize you may be giving up depth in coverage, but generally your giving up depth of opinion or informed opinion, not facts.
• Get perspective - Find an international news source, like the BBC, for perspective.  It can truly be beneficial to get an outsider's perspective of the events of the day.  Sometimes our news organizations are part of the broader story, which makes it difficult to report.
• Be charitable - Don't fall for any news source that tries to demonize the other side.  If your news source seems to be constantly blaming the other side, it has an agenda.  I've grown more and more fond of this quote that George W. Bush has shared.  "Too often we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions."  Life and reality are generally somewhere in the middle and we should be seeking information that bridges that gap.

The new media landscape we have created can be a minefield to navigate.  As always, be safe out there.