What Media Bias?
Published October 13, 2003
The Media's Not Biased; It's Your Perception
Are you convinced that President Bush is treated unfairly in the media? Or, are you furious at the little skepticism the media had about the proposed invasion of Iraq? Political liberals and conservatives, alike, often complain that the media treats them, their candidates or their positions unfairly or unequally. Tien-Tsung Lee, a professor at the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication at Washington State University, argues, in his dissertation, that in most cases, it's not ideology that is the perception of bias. Rather, the media is largely centrist and objective, and its those who read, watch, and listen to the media that interpret bias from where there is largely none.
A long list of conservatives, from Rush Limbaugh to conservative politicians, argue that the media is pro-Democratic, pro-abortion, pro-labor, anti-business, anti-Christian, and, probably till recently, anti-national defense. Tien-Tsung Lee notes that in all cases, there is no scientific evidence, or its insufficient, confirming these biases. One other primary complaint from conservatives is that most journalists are Democratic. According to Lee, this is true. Nonetheless, Lee added, there is no conclusive evidence that journalists' ideological and partisan opinions influence their reporting.
The argument that political liberals often present is that media owners and editors are often Republicans and, therefore, its in their interest to support, and not criticize, government and business. They also argue that, because much of the media is dependent upon advertising and because most journalists are from the upper-middle-class and the dependence of journalists on news sources such as government officials and conservative think tanks, they're encouraged not to be critical of government or business.
David Domke, a communications professor at the University of Washington, notes that these arguments are only valid given the right context. Consistently, however, over a longer period of time, no bias has been found. "Some scholars have found a liberal media bias. Other scholars have found a conservative one. I think what it largely comes down to is context. What issues are being covered, in what context? You have to take into account these contextual situations. Journalists who examine a variety of situations, variety of issues, variety of people, would find that there is no consistent media bias ideologically. However, in any single topic, person, you could well find media coverage that is heavily favorable to one topic or one person," said Domke.
Using this as a premise, that no consistent media bias has been found, Tien-Tsung Lee argues that it's the consumers of media information that are finding bias. That is, "no matter how objective and balanced a report is, observers are going to perceive a bias," wrote Lee in an email interview. To illustrate this point, he uses an example of a ball that's on a center line. If viewed from the right, the viewer only sees the ball's right side. If viewed from the left, the viewer only sees the ball's left's side. In support of his argument, Lee points out that those who support political groups or causes, those who identify themselves as on the right or left, are likely to see the media as unfair or hostile to their cause and favorable to their opponents. In experimental study, for instance, pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups were likely to say that the same media content, about the 1982 war in Lebanon, would cause neutral viewers to become unsympathetic to their side and favorable towards the other.
- What Media Bias?
- Published: October 13, 2003
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- Section: Culture
- Filed Under: Culture: Media
- Writer: Sam Sachdev
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Comments on this articleComments
Is anyone surprised that a media professor would say the media is not biased?
"Bias" is actually a tricky term. Bias, in my mind, does not mean you hold a particular point of view; it means you insert that point of view into "news" reporting.
You often hear about "objectivity" as well. There is no objectivity when humans are concerned. Everybody has beliefs, opinions and points of view.
So are members of the media objective? No. Are they biased? Sometimes.
I can tell you as a former professional journalist and close relative of a retired national TV reporter that most journalists are, in fact, liberals. That's from first-hand experience.
I have never been surprised by that fact, since kids who go into journalism school are often "out to change the world" and they realize they are heading into a low-paying profession. Those two factors tend to appeal more to liberals than conservatives.
And if you look at the big conservative "news" people, they are more likely to be converted lawyers, politicians, etc. who made their money long before they entered "journalism".
So I think it's clear that those working in the media, in general, lean left politically, although some will dispute that.
But it's one thing to hold a distinct political viewpoint as a journalist and another to push that agenda and viewpoint through the "news" you cover.
As I said, "bias", in my mind, is when a journalist's politics make their way into a news story and are used to distort the facts.
Bias happens, but it's not as rampant as the right-wingers would have you believe (except, of course, in the right-wing venues such as Rush, Hannity, etc. where they are much more likely to pass off opinion as "news"). Eliminating bias is the role of editors and producers. And good editors and producers keep the bias out of the news.
Does bias get into the news? Absolutely. Liberal bias is fairly common, but it's also common for new outlets to be biased against "big business", against local politicians, etc. And local news is probably the worst, playing anybody and anything they can off as evil to boost ratings. That's their particular bias.
However, I think the most dangerous incidents of bias are those organized on an institutional level. I think the reporting the L.A. Times did in advance of the governor's race (and the timing of their reporting) shows a clear bias toward derailing the candidacy of Arnold.
He didn't say there isn't bias, he said it isn't consistent or systematic over the big picture.
Yeah, and I agree with that, which was supposed to be part of my point ...
But I think most of the discussion seems to be "there's no bias" (the left) or "everything's biased" (the right). Of course, the truth is in between.
Yes, any given story can be biased (and they often are), and even general coverage of a given story can show a bias, but "media bias" as some kind of monolith does not exist.
I agree with Professor Lee that there is no conclusive evidence that journalists' ideological and partisan opinions influence their reporting. In fact, influence does not inhibit news from being reported, i.e. it does not change the nature of the news, but rather the effect. The effect is influenced from a purely subjective level of interpretation so just as Lee's ball example, one must chose to be unsympathetic or favorable and create a personal an often unintentional bias. However, this bias is shaped not from one source of news, but from multiple interpretations and applications of our paradigm. As far as tastefulness goes, news is to be influential in some non-esoteric way.
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Thanks Sam, terrific job, fascinating and confirms a lot of my own thoughts on the matter. Welcome!
Everyone go check out his very cool Allsci mag.