(C) Fairness & Accuracy in Media This story was originally published by Fairness & Accuracy in Media and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Media Literacy Guide: How to Detect Bias in News Media [1] [] Date: 2012-08-30 17:30:00+00:00 Media have tremendous power in shaping political and cultural narratives—telling us what and who matters, why things are as they are and what it would mean to change them. An informed and critical audience challenges news media to be fair, independent and accurate. Here are some questions to ask yourself about news you consume, whether it’s in print, online, on TV or radio or in your social media feed. Who are the sources? Make note of the people quoted in the story, and at what length. Who is considered an expert on the subject? Media tend to over-rely on “official” sources like government, corporate and think tank representatives, and often fail to highlight the perspectives of ordinary people most affected by a problem, or their advocates. When the US withdrew its troops from Afghanistan, only 31% of the sources in ABC, CBS and NBC nightly news reports on the story were Afghan or Afghan-American, and only 5% were Afghan women, although coverage often claimed to focus on Afghan women’s rights. No scholars or antiwar activists from either the US or Afghanistan were featured (FAIR.org, 9/24/21). Be wary of unnamed sources: News outlets have rules restraining the use of anonymous sources to specific circumstances, including when the information is vital to the story, and when the individual providing the information could be at risk if their name is published. Reporters should also explain in the story the reason the source requested anonymity–beyond “because the source was not authorized to speak on the record.” Misuse of anonymous sourcing can compromise transparency and truth. In the lead-up to the Iraq War in 2003, the New York Times relied crucially on anonymous “Bush administration officials” who insisted Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It did not (FAIR.org, 3/29/16). Pay attention to the diversity of people appearing as sources in the news. In cable news, a 2014 FAIR snapshot found that 84% of guests appearing in interview/discussion segments were white and 72% were male (FAIR.org, 7/1/14). Who is telling the story? In order to fairly and accurately represent a wide range of stories, news outlets should have a diverse array of identities represented as decision-makers. But a 2018 Columbia Journalism Review study found that US newsroom staff is 83% white, even though people of color make up 37% of the population. Question the impact of having, for example, a newsroom with no Black employees, making decisions about how to cover the Black Lives Matter movement, or an all-male editorial team reporting on reproductive rights. What might they miss, or misunderstand? Where does this journalism’s funding come from? Who owns or pays for this news source–a multinational corporation? A billionaire? A hedge fund? Journalists are charged to report the news “without fear or favor,” but media outlets’ owners and sponsors generate conflicts of interest and affect the agenda behind that outlet’s work. For example, Amazon‘s Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. The paper has repeatedly extolled the billionaire’s vanity space project (FAIR.org, 07/24/21), and railed against wealth taxes that would impact his personal bank account (FAIR.org, 12/11/19). Sometimes owner influence is explicit: Axel Springer, which bought Politico in 2021, required reporters to follow the parent company’s principles—including support for “a united Europe,” “the trans-Atlantic alliance” and “a free market economy” (FAIR.org, 11/5/21). In 2013, the PBS Nova series aired a documentary called “Rise of the Drones,” which portrayed weaponized drones and surveillance in a largely positive light (FAIR.org, 1/28/13). What viewers were never told was that defense company Lockheed Martin, which sponsored the episode, is a major manufacturer of such drones. Other times, conflicts are more about the primacy of ratings over journalism. CBS executive Les Moonves acknowledged that Donald Trump’s candidacy “might be bad for America,” but, because of the ratings-grabbing (and consequent advertiser-spending) spectacle, “it’s damn good for CBS.” What are the unchallenged assumptions and stereotypes? Often the most important message of a story is not explicitly stated. For instance, corporate media often report heavily on low-level street crime like shoplifting while ignoring widespread corporate crime like wage theft, which has cost workers billions (FAIR.org, 7/19/21). When a gunman in Atlanta opened fire in three Asian-owned spas in 2021, six of the eight victims were Asian women. Media coverage relied heavily on law enforcement narratives, which came with the assumption that all Asian spa workers are sex workers—and an underlying suggestion that sex workers’ lives are less valuable. Slanted sourcing meant that a bias about the disposability of some women’s lives was a significant, but unexamined, part of the story’s framing (FAIR.org, 3/26/21). Corporate journalists like CNN’s Jake Tapper have engaged in head-scratching over how the government could possibly pay for social services like Medicare for All, canceling student loan debt and a federal right to housing, while not questioning the price tag of exorbitant military spending (FAIR.org, 9/20/21). US foreign policy reporting routinely assumes the benevolence of US official intentions and goals, despite well-documented challenges to that presumption. During Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, NBC Nightly News reported on the possible use of cluster bombs by the Russian military, while incorrectly stating that the US had not used these inhumane weapons since the first Gulf War. The US used cluster munitions as recently as 2009 and still continues to manufacture and distribute them abroad (FAIR.org, 6/3/22). Does this story include loaded language? When media adopt loaded terminology or buzzwords, they shape public opinion. Corporate media routinely refer to Medicare for All as “government-run,” not “public” healthcare, while referring to for-profit health insurance as “private” rather than “corporate-run.” As GOP polling consultant Frank Luntz explained on Fox News (8/19/09), describing something as “government” as opposed to “public” causes people to have a less favorable view of it (FAIR.org, 7/1/19). “Proxy” is a word with a negative connotation that implies one country is using another to carry out its interest abroad. By that definition, the US has “proxies,” yet US media tend to refer to US-linked countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel as “allies.” In the past decade, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post used the word “proxy” to describe Iran’s foreign relations four times more often than it used the word “proxy” to describe the US’s (FAIR.org, 4/21/21).The corporate press has also used “divisive” as shorthand for “unpopular with elites” (FAIR.org, 4/17/21). In 2020, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (Twitter, 12/29/20) described a $2,000 Covid relief check as “divisive,” even though 75% of Americans (and 72% of Republicans) wanted the government to prioritize another universal payment. Does this story present a false balance between sides of an issue (“both-sidesing”) ? Both sides are not always equal—especially when one is based on disinformation or hate. When reporting gives as much voice to truth as it does to lies and propaganda, it stokes a harmful debate and normalizes disinformation. “Objectivity” without accurate analysis is not ethical journalism. For example, when the CDC approved the Covid vaccine for kids 5–11, USA Today suggested that parents had risks to weigh that were relatively equal on both sides when deciding whether or not to vaccinate their children, presenting them with a “tough decision”—despite the clear public health consensus that vaccination is vastly safer than infection (FAIR.org, 11/2/21). Coverage of 2021 violence in Israel/Palestine described Israel’s attacks on Palestinians as simply justified “retaliations” to aggression by Hamas, ignoring the military siege the Israeli government has been carrying out on Gaza for more than a decade. Words like “clash” are also often used to position both groups as equally participating in violence, despite the disproportionate violence Palestinian civilians receive at the hands of Israeli forces (FAIR.org, 5/18/21). According to the human rights group B’tselem, since 2000 there have been eight times as many Palestinians killed by Israelis as there have been Israelis killed by Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories. Are the visuals misleading? We often think of photographs as objective, but they can easily skew a story line or point the reader toward one perspective. Misleading visuals can also come in the form of a graph or chart that looks as if it is showing accurate statistics but is manipulating data. Photos featured in New York Times articles about Covid-19 in Africa in the first year of the pandemic pictured a corpse wrapped in plastic, a man outside a funeral home, and caskets stacked in a strip mall, despite the continent overall having relatively low infection rates. One of the photos was taken in Somalia, which was not even mentioned in the accompanying article. The articles written about Covid in East Asia, on the other hand, pictured no corpses, caskets or funeral homes, despite thousands of Covid deaths occurring there (FAIR.org, 6/8/21). In 2016, the New York Times reported that employment rates for white Americans were dropping, while rates for Black, Asian and Hispanic Americans were rising. The Times’ chart misled by omitting key context: The main reason for the difference is that the number of working-age whites had fallen, while the number of working-age people in the other groups had risen (FAIR.org, 12/15/16). Does the headline match reality—or the rest of the piece? Generally written by editors, not reporters, headlines may be restricted by space or search engine requirements. But many people get the bulk of their news from skimming headlines alone, so misleading headlines have a significant impact. A classic is the 1988 New York Times story in which British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is quoted saying of Ronald Reagan, “Poor dear, there’s nothing between his ears”—which the paper ran under the headline: “Thatcher Salute to Reagan Years” (New York Times, 6/2/88). “Hundreds of Thai Medical Workers Infected Despite Sinovac Vaccinations,” read one Reuters headline (7/11/21). The story itself revealed that it was 618 workers out of 677,348—or 0.09%. The New York Times (11/11/20) headlined a story, “Brazil Resumes Chinese Vaccine Trial After a Brief Suspension Following the Death of a Volunteer.” Readers who didn’t read past the headline would never guess that the volunteer’s cause of death was suicide, and not vaccine-related (Extra!, 8–9/21). Other headlines are misleadingly vague. In 2022, after Senate Republicans voted against legislation to counter voting restrictions across the country, the New York Times ran with the headline, “After a day of debate, the voting rights bill is blocked in the Senate” (1/19/22). This passive wording fails to acknowledge who was responsible for blocking the bill. “GOP Blocks Voting Rights Bill in Senate” would not have only been a clearer headline—it also would’ve taken up less space! How prominently are stories placed? Where a story is shown and how easily it can be accessed affect how many people read it, and how significant it is deemed to be. Keep note of whether stories on crucial topics are featured on the homepage of the website, the front page of a paper, or given time on TV news. During the New York City mayoral primaries in 2021, tabloids’ front pages were emblazoned with sensationalist headlines about shoplifting and other street crimes. Readers were eight to ten times more likely to read about local crime than the local housing crisis, a story that rarely graced the front pages. This coverage imbalance suggested to readers that crime was a more prevalent problem, while in reality the chances of being severely rent-burdened in New York were 1 in 6, while the chances of being shot were 1 in 5,000 (FAIR.org, 6/21/21). In 2019, Congress approved a $22 billion increase in the military budget from the year before. Ten major outlets gave the story less than half the coverage of that given to a Peloton ad (FAIR.org, 12/19/19). HOW TO TAKE ACTION In recent years, newspapers have been phasing out the use of ombuds—public editors who field critiques from readers and publish their own commentary on the paper’s editorial choices. The only major outlet that still has a public editor is NPR, which appointed Kelly McBride for the role in 2020. Finding the right people to reach out to can be difficult, but most journalists and editors publicly display their email and social media in their writers’ bios. FAIR believes respectful, concise and direct communication with outlets makes a difference in corporate media’s reporting. Visit FAIR’s Media Contacts page for more information on how to reach out. Other ways to be a media activist include: Supporting independent, nonprofit news outlets Publicly discussing bias, omissions and other issues in reporting on social media (Most outlets, editors and journalists have public Twitter and Facebook pages—tag them!) Organizing public demonstrations (For more on how to effectively demonstrate, visit FAIR’s “ Organize! ” page.) Sign up for FAIR’s Action Alerts to receive an email every time FAIR documents an instance of media inaccuracy or bias and encourage members to communicate directly to journalists to demand more responsible reporting. [END] --- [1] Url: https://fair.org/take-action-now/media-activism-kit/how-to-detect-bias-in-news-media/ Published and (C) by Fairness & Accuracy in Media Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/fair/