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.

An Enemy of the People

"The press was to serve the governed, not the governors."

New York Times Co. v. United States (1971)

The title of the blog is a phrase that has been increasingly used over the past several months, but one whose concept is likely ill understood. 

The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2017

Over the course of the last century, the phrase has been used repeatedly by dictators and autocrats to delegitimize foreign governments, opposition parties, and dissenters.  Though the phrase dates back to Roman times, it came into use in the modern period during the French Revolution.  Ennemi du peuple was used to referred to those who disagreed with the new government during the "Reign of Terror."  It was further used by the Third Reich to describe the Jews as a "sworn enemy of the German people."  Vrag naroda was then used by the communists during the early years of the Soviet Union.  It referred to anyone to disagreed with the ideologies pushed forth by the Bolshevik government and the newly-formed Soviet Union.  In recent years, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela has also called political dissenters "enemies of the homeland."

The phrase also served as the title for a play by Henrik Ibsen, later further adapted by Arthur Miller.  Ibsen wrote the play in response to the outcry to his previous work Ghosts.  The play focuses on a doctor who discovers that the source of the town's economy, health baths, has been contaminated and is poisoning its inhabitants.  The action centers on his attempts to reveal the truth and the attempts by others in the town including his family, the mayor, and the newspaper editor to suppress that information.  The term "enemy of the people" is thus used to describe the protagonist for the damage he would do to the town's reputation (despite the fact that he would be saving them all).

Trump has almost exclusively used the phrase to refer to the "mainstream" media, as part of his decrying of "fake news."   His administration continued to support this position, even reaching the point where his Press Secretary Sarah Sanders refused to say the press was not the enemy of the people in a press briefing.  This has led many others to push back.

On Thursday, August 16, 2018, the senate unanimously voted to assure that the press is not the enemy of the people.  Further, hundreds of newspapers across the country printed editorials to elaborate and to extol the virtues of a free press.

Trump responded in appropriate fashion.

There is nothing that I would want more for our Country than true FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. The fact is that the Press is FREE to write and say anything it wants, but much of what it says is FAKE NEWS, pushing a political agenda or just plain trying to hurt people. HONESTY WINS!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 16, 2018

Freedom of the press is a foundational belief in our country.  "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."  Tied to the freedom of speech, it is fundamental to our representative democracy.  It's one of the "great bulwarks of our liberty."

Further, the United Nations as part of its Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized that "[e]veryone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference, and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers."

It is disconcerting to see such a fundamental right be continually attacked and denigrated, particularly by the highest offices of our nation and particularly when it is done as to so clearly pander to a base constituency.

The irony is the term "enemy of the people" truly can be used to describe to someone that was perceived threat to those in power, but who has the best interest of the society in mind.  It's definitely the way that the play uses the term, and how history has represented its use by dictators and autocrats.

Perhaps then, it is most appropriate here.  After all, the press is warning us of the abuses of an administration that perhaps sees that the walls are closing in.  And the press has played a large role in the resignation of a corrupt president before.

I just pray we don't lose sight of its value in the interim.

Thomas Jefferson famously wrote to a friend, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."  He may have changed his thoughts during his presidency, but perhaps therein lies the central conflict.  It's hard to champion the free press when you are its target.  It then rest with the rest of us to make sure such a fundamental right is maintained and appreciated.

The New York Times makes a very good point in its editorial on the subject.  Subscribe to your local papers.  Praise them when they do well and criticize them when they could do better.  But be involved and be a part of it.

We're in this together.

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.