Media Bias

We all love to blame the media for being biased. I work in the industry (or at least, I pretend to! ) and I admit that there's a lot of bias around and I throw accusations of it around plenty (you should hear my rants about the Baby Boomers are too unfair on Gen Y!)
Especially when the line can be blurry between opinion and analysis.

But this is an interesting observation

As is this

And I thought that it could be some interesting food for thought, not only in how you read newspaper articles (or tv/radio bulletins) but also posts on our lovely HoP as well...

So basically everyone else has it wrong?

Precisely. I'm never wrong.

I thought I was once. But it turns out I was mistaken

well, rougie - wrong AGAIN !

Those articles have far too many big words in them for me. What peeves me about the media is that they (yes, "they") only ever portray bad stuff happening - when do you pick up a newspaper and see a bunch of good news? It's all bad sorry and it simply depresses everyone. I stopped watching the news and reading the paper several years ago based on this perception. (Serious this time Rouge, in case you were wondering!)
The media is after all a business trying to make money and they seem to hav worked out that good news doesn't sell - only scandal and $hit happening (to other people) - presumably so that they can feel better about their own pile of woes being small in comparison. See I'm generally ok with my lot so I don't perceive a pile of woes that need to be de-significantised. I reckon that if everyone just decided to be happy, they wouldn't need the media and then Rouge would be out of a job (that she hasn't got).

There's another theory for ya miss dragon!

very good point indeed George... the media IS biased to the point of "which neews can we actually sell BEST!"

and there is still the distinction to be made between "news" (like in HEADLINES) and "information" (like in "useful stuff to know - no matter when")... like "it might not be worth considering to export my Bullet Machismo to Australia" but "it might be worth considering to ship individual parts"... and all that being with low significance anyway until summer of 2012 (at least for me)...

but for one thing you're completely right:



.. errm "especially"

so Tom, which of your parts are you planning to ship to Oz ahead of 2012??! That could be interesting to watch! :-)

So which came first, the bias or the informatin ?

IMO it's the bias leading people to seek out sources of information that back up their preformed opinions on topics they know little, if anything, about. Maybe it's been a conversation, maybe it's been an article and too often it's been an emailed video that's been that first exposure to an issue or topic one is unfamiliar with that leads to the application of confirmation bias and an unwillingness to admit that that first source of information might have been "wrong"

Take anti-vaccination as an issue. All it takes is a belief that if something is "natural" it's somehow "better" leading to an entrenched distrust of western or "unnatural" medicine to lead someone to post links to freaky websites like whale.to in order to "prove" their point.

I've never heard people who are worried about things like ethylmercury (thimersol) get up and say they'll never eat seafood again because they're worried about mercury poisoning, just ranting about "BIG PHARMA" Suzanne Sommers anyone ?

IMO a healthy dose of skepticism should be applied to all news articles whether they be mainstream or alternative.

isn't the bias only created according to our core beliefs?

then again: where do our core beliefs originate from?

...Your experiences...

really? didn't remotely figure myself as heaving such an impact on you guys

*coughs* Hassler

My grandparents used to get a 'Good News only Newspaper'..
It was very boring, and it folded very fast.

I mean- there's not so much 'positive' that's really news- a car doesn't crash, who tells the papers?

I stayed with a lady who'd worked on the English language section of the news on Chinese TV- they had a policy that they were only allowed to report a maximum of 15% 'bad news'- which meant they had to twist all the -vast majority bad news- things reported into weird 'good news'- I don't know about you, but I'm quite glad our media doesn't have restrictions like that..

to boil it all down:

It really depends on the author of an article and the paper/magazine/station that publishes it...

Bad research and tacky styles are aimed to create bias by serving it.

My favourite Bill Hicks quote UCOF! He is LEGEND

To get to the topic, it is common knowledge bias cannot be removed from reporting at all. There are too many factors in play on a person to person level for it ever to be removed. As consumers of this big business, the best defence is to educate ourselves in the manifestations of biases including our own, to source out the information we need and/or want (after all the bias does not stop with the reporter).

You should read Ben Goldacre's blog http://www.badscience.net/

He is on a mission to expose bad science (mainly medical as he is a doctor, he also teaches medical students how to spot bad research in universities) and bad science reporting. He quite often wonders off into any bad statistics or political reporting though.

Thanks for the link Seye very interesting. I like the example of drug companies funding an article/study and not putting thier names to it in order to get the audience to come around to thier way of thinking. This, to me at least, highlights my earlier point of educating ourselves on the identification of biases

bad science is great! i was psyched to see his column in te guardian when i bought british newspaper

i especially liked his reporting on the neurosurgeon that stated to the press it was safer to give a room full of random people a bowl of extacy rather than a bowl of peanuts (based on deaths per head of population from each substance), and was then fired as a government advisor! for stating the truth!

Ben Goldacre is a bit of a legend.

Charlie Brooker is also a regular columnist in the Guardian. He mainly comments on how the media report stories. His TV program is awesome. This was probably the highlight of the last series... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtGSXMuWMR4 and this was his last column... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/22/charlie-brooker-newspapers-dangerous-drug .

I jus wish the rest of the Guardian was as respectable as they are though. They both seem to keep writing about ridiculous things that their colleagues have written.

Seye that article is brilliant! also i notice you are in manchester, i arrived in stoke-on-trent yesterday, hitting up the BJC?