Analyzing Media Bias and Its Influence on American Politics
Media Bias
How is the media, biased, more towards progressive-liberal values, conservative values or in both directions depending on the specific media outlets you may access? According to an article written by Robert M. Entman, the term bias “seems to take on three major meanings. Sometimes, it is applied to news that distorts or falsifies reality (distortion bias), some- times to news that favors one side rather than providing equivalent treatment to both sides in a political conflict (content bias), and sometimes to the motivations and mindsets of journalists who produce the biased content (decision-making bias).”
The media has a large influence on political siding. With one article sometimes, an opinion can be swayed in either direction with a simple play of words. The media as multiple ways to distract followers in whatever direction they want them to go in in order to achieve their goal. Bias can come in a variety of ways as well. The simplest being selective reporting. This is when a media chooses to focus on certain topics, while downplaying others. Some news agencies will even ignore entire stories in favor of others. It is important to recognize that selective reporting is not always evidence of a political bias.
For example, there are a lot of negative news stories about Donald Trump. This is due to a mix of two factors. The first being, there are more stories to write that portray the president in a negatively. Next “Obama Does Something Normal that We All Do” wouldn’t have as much appeal as “Obama does something that no President has Done Before”. Media need to sell that advertising space it is a business at the end of the day.
There are a heavier subset of selective reporting called lying by omission. This is when important facts are completely left out of a story to leave the reader with a false impression of the events. It can also include reporting heavily in favors of a single narrative despite there being equal or greater evidence of a contrary narrative. To leave out politics, you get this more often than not in scientific reporting. They usually include the phrase ‘new study shows’ and will go one to explain the results of a one study which is usually flawed.
These articles are especially common on websites with a goal in mind. The best-known example from recent years would be global warming. If a single study, no matter its flaws, was found to go against the accepted scientific consensus in any way, it was often picked up by fringe groups and reported as hard proof that climate change does not exist. These groups were happy to ignore the number of studies that concluded man-made climate change existed.
One blatant example of liberal media bias I have come across is a comparison of Hilary Clinton and Melania Trump wearing the color white. In an image of two articles being compared, the first article is praising Hilary for the color option claiming she wore it to represent “purity” and symbolizes the quality of woman’s right purpose. On the contrary in the same article they in turn proceed to degrade Melania Trump wearing a clothing option in white. She is being slander with remarks of “To many that outfit could be another remind that white is always right”. It is clear where the writer of the article was standing as far as their political opinion goes.
Media can be either liberal or conservative. In some cases, it can be both, but which side has more of an influence on us in regard to media? In an article written by Stephen Turley, he states, “There is, I believe, an inescapable global consequence to these twin commitments of secular liberalism: inexorably, the secular liberal reimagines the world bifocally as comprised of those who embrace secular liberal values on the one hand and those who reject them on the other.
Those who embrace secular commitments are by definition rational and liberal, while those who reject them are by definition irrational and repressive.” Stephan in the article believes that the media is much more liberal than conservative. He discusses an example photo in the same article of two athletes, one admitting to being Christian the other admitting to being gay and shows are reporter being uninterested in the Christian but asking the gay for more information. He used this example to back up his views on the liberal media. In an article by Dana Niccitelli, she discusses how conservative outlets were found guilty of bias global warming coverage.
Global warming is obvious a global issue that is often discussed across all media sides. She is claiming conservative media is bias against global warming discussion and opinions. She states, “Specifically, politically conservative news outlets like Rupert Murdoch's Fox News and the Wall Street Journal were responsible for the lion's share of the false balance, disproportionately representing climate contrarians in their stories about the IPCC report.” The article itself is not bias she is simply discussing facts about how conservative cover major news reports. I believe that the liberal side of media is more favored over the conservative side of media.
Conservative beliefs have gotten a bad reputation throughout the years as you can see from Niccitellis article. Conservative have a reputation for exaggerating the truth and manipulating media to look a certain way to appeal to their viewers.
The Fox News channel, The Blaze Network, and Breitbart all lean favorably to the conservative bias. They constantly praise Trump, or any other republican for that matter, while at the same time denigrating the liberal. They also want appear as non-biased, with Fox going as far as having their slogan as “fair and balanced.”
They often have liberal commentators on their show but are often outnumbered. Fox also often criticized Obama for taking vacations and playing many rounds of golf, but gave his predecessor George Bush, and subsequent president Donald Trump, a pass on this issue despite them playing more golf more vacation days than Barrak Obama. Trump is set to play as much golf in a single year than Obama did in eight, but Fox is failing to report this to their viewers.
