Show me the bias.

[Peregrinator]

I see comments on here all the time about how some news source is biased.

Link a news story or article. No editorials or opinion pieces. Those are naturally going to be biased.

Post why or how you think the piece you linked is biased. Biased toward what or whom? What does it say that's misleading or non-factual? What does it leave out that would make it more balanced?

Posts which do not follow this simple guide will be ignored.

 

[Wok]

popcorn

 

[pointless]

will this count towards my final grade?

 

[Sonny Limatina]

I see comments on here all the time about how some news source is biased.

Link a news story or article. No editorials or opinion pieces. Those are naturally going to be biased.

Post why or how you think the piece you linked is biased. Biased toward what or whom? What does it say that's misleading or non-factual? What does it leave out that would make it more balanced?

Posts which do not follow this simple guide will be ignored.

Most people who make that claim have obvious reasons for doing so.

Reporters are exceedingly suspicious of their own biases, and of the career-ending suggestion that they'd falsified or insufficiently verified facts. Most people simply don't know the climate of verification that exists inside news organizations. Because they don't know it, they don't account for it in their processing of the information they're seeing. In many cases, the organization or story goes to disproportionate pains to present an 'other' side to an issue that doesn't factually warrant one.

Having said that, biases often do present themselves in the kinds of information an organization is not including, both in general and within a particular story. Lay the New York Times and Wall Street Journal out side by side and you'll get a wash of editorially accurate stories, but with an aggregate effect of two different editorial leanings.

The biggest bias among news organizations is not left or right, as most people think, it's pro-money or access. A story that threatens either one (or both) is going be given far longer and deeper consideration than one about whether the jobs report is slightly good or slightly bad--and will often be skipped or watered down in ways that really do effect the quality of the news we receive.

As you move away from straight news into feature-heavier areas, reporters are far more likely to develop an angle first and look for supporting documentation or quotes second. But lapses in accuracy or truth are equally career-ending in those areas.

Since this is really a thread about Fox, deep down, I'll leave them out for now and let someone else take up that particular journalistic grey area.

 

[Wok]

MSNBC coddles terrorism.

In this story, it was reported France's face veil law has taken effect. In what should have been reported as a positive first step to curbing the Islamification of an already terror-ass kissing country, all the mainstream media wants to do is tear it down with nonsense like this:

While some see encroaching Islamophobia in the new ban, President Nicolas Sarkozy's government defended it as a rampart protecting France's identity against inequality and extremism. Police grumbled that it will be hard to enforce.

"The law is very clear. Hiding your face in public places is cause for imposing sanctions," Interior Minister Claude Gueant said Monday at an EU meeting in Luxembourg. He said it defends "two fundamental principles: the principle of secularism and the principle of equality between man and woman."

And damn right people should be concerned about Islam. It is never about moderates, it is about making Sharia the law of the world, including the United States. MSNBC and the rest of the tards fail to point that out on a regular basis.

 

[DevilishTexan]

MSNBC coddles terrorism.

In this story, it was reported France's face veil law has taken effect. In what should have been reported as a positive first step to curbing the Islamification of an already terror-ass kissing country, all the mainstream media wants to do is tear it down with nonsense like this:



And damn right people should be concerned about Islam. It is never about moderates, it is about making Sharia the law of the world, including the United States. MSNBC and the rest of the tards fail to point that out on a regular basis.

Vote me in as All Mighty Benevolent King Bigshit and I will personally see to it everyone connected with MSNBC gets deported to the Muslim country of their choice. Loved ones get flowers. Because I'm benevolent.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

I see comments on here all the time about how some news source is biased.

Link a news story or article. No editorials or opinion pieces. Those are naturally going to be biased.

Post why or how you think the piece you linked is biased. Biased toward what or whom? What does it say that's misleading or non-factual? What does it leave out that would make it more balanced?

Posts which do not follow this simple guide will be ignored.

It's not quite that simple. Bias is not always demonstrated by overt attempts to mislead. Bias is often demonstrated by what truth one wishes to emphasize while neglecting other truths.

Take a look at the following polls on the Afghanistan War. What they show is a general and growing opposition to the war over time. A constant barrage of stories that cited American's dissatisfaction with the war would be telling the truth, as would stories that cited the latest combat deaths and the total war dead to date. But some would argue that the constant exposure to a particular set of distasteful or unpopular facts stands as a bias in itself and may even contribute to the formation of the public opinion that the polls seek to reveal.

http://www.pollingreport.com/afghan.htm

In contrasting coverage of the war in Afghanistan under the Obama administration as opposed to under the Bush administration, I have an overall sense that I saw more coverage of the war under Bush than I have under Obama. Obviously I could confirm or disprove that "sense" by doing some exhaustive research, but that's a master thesis project at the very least, and I don't think you're awarding degrees.

But hopefully that gives you an idea of how bias can exist without the need to resort to distortion or the publishing of unvarnished opinion.

 

[Byron In Exile]

Posts which do not follow this simple guide will be ignored.

If we do it right, what do we win?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

My local paper hates our new governor. During the campaign they filled the paper with stories about how his corporation stole millions from the US Govwernment.

The stories were true but he didnt run the corporation when it stole the money; he bought it after the FBI got involved. He wasnt charged with anything, nor did the FBI interview him. He had no part in the fraud. But every article about his corporation called him the ex-CEO of the corporation that stole millions from the government. They never included a disclaimer about his non-involvement.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Vote me in as All Mighty Benevolent King Bigshit and I will personally see to it everyone connected with MSNBC gets deported to the Muslim country of their choice. Loved ones get flowers. Because I'm benevolent.

I wanna be in charge of deportations . . . and licensing whore houses and gambling establishments.

 

[DevilishTexan]

I wanna be in charge of deportations . . . and licensing whore houses and gambling establishments.

You can be my 2nd in command for deportations but hell nah that shits gonna be too damn much fun. Vino is in charge of my ninja bitches. The ones that'll keep everyone in line. Kind of like Kill Bill chicas. 'Cept the ones with no Katana experience will just carry pistols. But they still get to wear the black pvc with pink racing stripes and thigh highs.

 

[rosco rathbone]

http://archive.pressthink.org/2010/06/14/ideology_press.html

 

[fair_warning]

Will there be an exam or grade assessment?

Nonsense aside, I was watching a programme recently about 'embedded' reporters (what I think of as war-as-entertainment reporting).....what a crock of shit they can end up feeding the viewer.

 

[KRCummings]

I had a journalism prof that felt that op/ed pieces were in violation of journalistic ethics and that newspapers should do away with them. He felt the news should be reported and that's it. Anything else is bias and taints the entire paper. He had a good point but he was also batshit crazy because he truly believed aliens landed at Roswell and visited the Mayans. He had tenure.

 

[Byron In Exile]

http://archive.pressthink.org/2010/06/14/ideology_press.html

Good article.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Good article.

The comments are good too.

 

[off2bed]

Michelle Malkin did your work for you.

the Roanoke (Va.) Times published an online database of registered concealed handgun permit holders in the paper's community under the sanctimonious guise of "Sunshine Week." The database included both the names and street addresses of some 135,000 Virginians with permits to carry concealed weapons. Columnist Christian Trejbal patted himself on the back for making it easy to snoop on the neighbors: "I can hear the shocked indignation of gun-toters already: It's nobody's business but mine if I want to pack heat. Au contraire. Because the government handles the permitting, it is everyone's business."

Trejbal denied that compiling the concealed carry permit holders list was "about being for or against guns." But he exposed his true agenda when he compared law-abiding gun owners to ... sex offenders: "A state that eagerly puts sex offender data online complete with an interactive map could easily do the same with gun permits, but it does not."

The Roanoke Times showed reckless disregard for the safety of the license holders and reckless disregard for accuracy. In his column, Trejbal admitted that he knew some of the information he had obtained was inaccurate — but published it anyway: "As a Sunshine Week gift, The Roanoke Times has placed the entire database, mistakes and all (emphasis added), online at www.roanoke.com/gunpermits.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin030911.php3

 

[off2bed]

This article makes no attempt to show that the very idea that Tea Party banners at a public rally would be controversial is the most absurd idea imaginable. It merely plants the seed in the reader's mind no less than three times that Tea Partiers are "too political" and "too controversial."

http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/14891

 

[redheadedtxn]

I like NPR.

 

[Wok]

I like NPR.

Commie.

 

[redheadedtxn]

Commie.

I'm sure I'm going to hell now, LOL

 

[unregistered]

 

[Wok]

I'm sure I'm going to hell now, LOL

Commies know no hell. We create it on Earth. Why do you hate working people so much?

 

[redheadedtxn]

Commies know no hell. We create it on Earth. Why do you hate working people so much?

uhh... I work? I don't hate anyone. Bad karma and shit.

 

[Wok]

uhh... I work? I don't hate anyone. Bad karma and shit.

Oh yeah? You are a doodie face!