Media Bias

Oftentimes, the political perspective of a news institution can lead to readers or viewers receiving a distorted image of what is really going on in the world. Bias can affect both liberal and conservative news sources, and in both ways is detrimental to readers. To learn more general information about bias, see the "What is Censorship" Page, and scroll to the "Media Bias" section.

Media Bias Example

In order to provide an example of how the political bias of a source can affect a news story, I selected one story, and viewed the write-up about it from a far "left" (more liberal) source and a "right wing" (conservative) source. To the side of my description of each article I have included the image in the original article. Image Credit

Fox News -Health Care Bill Passes the House: A Story of 'Broken Arms' and Secret Deals?

A Distraught Senator McConnell

11/10/09: In an interview with Greta van Susteren of Fox News, Senator Senator Mitch McConnell explains how the bill passed in the House of Representatives. McConnell comments about the methods of the Democrats, saying, "Well, they broke enough arms to finally get it over the top, but they lost one out of seven Democrats in the House who I think were responding to the American people's opposition to this bill. All the polls now indicate substantial opposition to this particular type of health care reform" The reporter from Fox asks for elaboration about how the representatives sold themselves out of party loyalty rather than asking for evidence to support this claim. Later in the interview van Susteren asks for information about how majority leader Reid will gain votes, to which McConnell replies he has heard that the leader will sit with individual congressmen and offer special deals for their districts. Again Susteren does not ask for evidence for this accusatory and controversial claim. Overall, this reporter ignores serious accusations, and seems to agree with the senator, never taking the opportunity to play devil's advocate or debate the claims. To read the full interview, click here.

New York Times - Sweeping Health Care Bill Passes House

A Thrilled Nancy Pelosi

11/7/09: Just as the article from the republican perspective included no constructive feelings from the Democrats, the article written from a liberal perspective features few comments from the Republican side, with the initial sentences of the article outlining what a noble victory has occurred. Just as the Fox article made the practices of the Democrats sound irrational and borderline illegal, so does the NYT article use emotionally charged words and phrases, saying that the Republicans "condemned the vote" and "sat quietly" after it had passed. Even though there are some more conservative views presented later in the article, they are quickly rebuffed by the NYTimes reporter, in one case he writes, "Democrats said that Republicans were intent on protecting the status quo in health care and that the new Democratic approach would vastly improve the ability of Americans to gain affordable health insurance." This shows how the Democrats always got the last word in this article. To read the full article, click here.

Overall, the New York Times article included much more defense of the Democrats, and ignored the fiercest criticism of the Republicans, who had lost the vote. The New York Times article was also much longer than the equivalent one presented by Fox, again reflecting the desire to only show positive news that readers will enjoy. The lack of information in both articles is indicative of biased reporting, and is clearly an example of media censorship.