From: cedman@714-725-3165.nts.uci.edu (Carl Edman)
Subject: Re: Bias? What Bias?
Newsgroups: alt.news-media
Reply-To: cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu (Carl Edman)
Date: 21 Aug 92 15:25:12 GMT

Steve Withers writes
> I have been following this bias argument.......

Nice to hear that.

> We all have a point of view shaped by our life experience to
> date. We interpret new events against that background.
> Our backgrounds differ and so will our interpretations.

No doubt.

> To be objective is impossible. To analyse anything, you
> have to have a system of values or ideas/opinions. These
> differ from person to person. Hence the need for
> politics.
>
> The media are no different. It is a cliche, but reality
> really *is* only a point of view.

Maybe.

> If journalists attend a political convention and a
> majority think the BIG GUY is a bozo.......well, they are
> either calling it the way *they* see it, or they are lying.
> Lying isn't bias, it's another thing altogether.

That is correct. People who accuse the media of bias generally don't mean that  
they actually lie. If the NYT says that the Serbs have taken Sarajevo then this  
is quite likely so. The NYT is not the Weekly World News after all. On the  
other hand if they can discreetly put a spin on it which makes the american  
left look better or can drop a secondary fact or two which makes the american  
right appear correct then they won't hesitate to do so.

> If you don't accept the way they see it......fine. They
> probably don't accept the way you see it, either.
> 
> That is life. No point moaning about it. It isn't going to
> change. 

No, quite likely this is not going to change.

But consider this hypothetical. Assume that for sociological reasons similar to  
the ones which make 80% of all reporters and editors Democrats, instead 80% of  
all reporters and editors were members of the American Nazi Party. Possibly  
they still wouldn't lie, but e.g. during the conventions they could honestly go  
on and on for hours about how blacks commit four or five times as many crimes  
as the general population, about how there are university professors of anatomy  
who claim that the brain structure of blacks is different from that of whites,  
how many blacks kill each other in africa and how much higher a standard of  
living blacks enjoy where they are kept under control by the white man in South  
Africa. 80% of reporters could talk about this and nothing else and would tell  
the truth though not the whole truth. Now imagine that the coverage of most  
issues was performed that way. Do you believe that this would manipulate the  
public opinion in ways you'd find disagreeable ?

All you said above about bias would still be true. But you would quite likely  
be calling for laws to fix this situation, demand that the government fund  
papers with different points of view, require that all news papers hire  
reporters whose political affiliation represents the general population aso.

Now most people who've argued on the same side as I have on this issue are  
temperamentally disinclined to solve all problems of the world by the use of  
legislation, so we don't call for anything like that. All we ask is that the  
general public be aware of the fact that most reporters and editors in the  
mainstream and quality media are clearly to the left of most of their readers  
and that they are not above letting their political views color their  
putatively "objective", "factual" reporting of news stories. Is that so much to  
ask ?

	Carl Edman