People everywhere always have something to say about a certain topic. This could leave topics to be controversial or given rise for disagreement. This includes everyday people including the people that write for the news or people you can see in the media. These objectionable views that are displayed for other people to see is called media bias. Media bias is everywhere, there is almost no news that involves politics that will not have a one sided story. Media Bias is also the result of strict crackdown on news known as censorship. Media Bias can use censorship to hide the one bad side of a story instead of implying an opinion on a topic. The biggest users of media bias are politicians with high influence and strict governments. It is very hard to find neutral news source without the opinions or censorship.
The uses of media bias vary but in the terms of journalists and major news outlets, they can use the media to change possibly important news articles and change how it appeals to an audience. Media bias most directly relates to the use of a media or news outlet. The most common is where the news outlet is allegedly partisan, meaning they have a clearly stated their support to a party, cause or person. A partisan news outlet could use coverage bias which is where the outlet makes the issue more or less visible to the news (Media Bias, Gale, 1). Another use for media bias is known as gatekeeping bias where news outlets pick out specific stories that are normally based on ideological grounds and emphasize on political actors and how they’re covered in their preferred stories. This is also referred to as agenda bias and is another of the few types of media bias (Media Bias, Gale, 1). The last of the most common forms of media bias is known as statement bias. Statement bias is when media coverage is slanted to make the particular person or issue more or less amiable to an audience. All these forms of media bias play their own role in what seems to be very partisan news outlets that are supposed to give valid information to concerned citizens. These news outlets risk jeopardizing the trust of these people by outputting biased information that their readers wouldn’t find well-grounded.
Studies show that consumers of news media are more likely to choose and trust news that reinforce their political beliefs. Media analysts say that this type of consumer behaviour works as an economic incentive for the news outlet to use and produce more of the same biased information (Media Bias, Gale). Others say that media outlets contend to the biases in information from different news outlets that motivate them to produce more moderate information for a larger, more diverse audience (Media Bias, Gale). Big media studies fall into more political biases that primarily focus on liberal or conservative ideals. Beyond the political dynamic, media bias can also occur in more cultural aspects including preferences for economic systems, religious traditions, and codes of conduct (Media Bias, Gale). In a survey 66 percent of
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American adults maintained that news media does a poor job of distinguishing between fact and opinion, a notable increase from the 42 percent that expressed such sentiments in 1984. The report also found that fewer than half of respondents (44 percent) could identify a news source they considered objective (Media Bias, Gale).
A news media could also be slammed by its viewers by portraying a less popular bias for their viewers. Take the Sinclair project, “Last month, news anchors at Sinclair Broadcast Group’s TV stations were required to read a script critical of “fake stories” and general bias in the major news networks. Because some of the phrasing mirrored President Donald Trump’s overcooked critique of liberal media outlets, the story triggered widespread and overwrought warnings about authoritarianism and the rise of state-run media” (Liberals, Harsanyi). Experts went on by saying that these media outlets would be “force feeding” consumers this biased information and that the oversized reaction is a result from media outlets flaunting the wrong bias, as if saying that the majority of the audience is liberal seeing how the Sinclair script emphasizes liberal political ideals (Liberals, Harsanyi). Those who act most appalled are the ones who should be somewhat responsible for the increase in a much more partisan journalism. Politically motivated journalists and reporters tend to be more concentrated on their specific targets and their work can occasionally be factually sounding. In the case of the Sinclair affiliates, most of them run independently, which make them a much better source for reliability than that of their majors. In a broader sense, these competing biases use information to make them more reliable to keep the other side challenged and force skepticism on the other side. Many journalist have a bias, that is undebatable, but most media bias seems to be a byproduct of journalists’ worldview, not just some conspiracy to mislead the public. In part of the Sinclair case, the bias was turned on a much bigger side therefore leading to a large reaction (Liberals, Harsanyi).
Through a study conducted using people with equally strong political ideals from their own separate political parties, the study found that conservatives were more likely to identify media bias than liberals, but that both conservatives and liberals were able to identify media bias in news outlets that leaned against their own political ideals. The study then showed that because conservatives were more critical of the media, both in general and in response to specific outlets, the results seemed more consistent with the claim that a liberal political bias exists in mainstream media (Liberal Media, Selepak). When a news story has evidence of both equal and opposing views, it should be obvious that that only half the story should be deemed accurate, therefore it having biased views and not being balanced.
