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This is an archive of past discussions about Media bias. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
I reverted the recent deletion of material on the Chomsky book and the editorial that replaced that deletion on two grounds: first, that it is generally not a good idea to replace referenced material with unreferenced material, and second, because the new material contained a large number of errors in grammar and usage. Rick Norwood 13:41, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I removed the section on unattributed quotes and all that because, ironically, it had no attribution. I don't know what proof the author had that any journalists use "no comment" to not include points of view contrary to their own rather than using it to indicate that the person declined to comment or didn't return messages. Also, what proof is there that journalists use unattributed comments to push their agenda rather than to indicate that those sources didn't want to be named? Fianlly, were any of this true, it would be a tecnique of propagating bias rather than a type of bias. Stardog101 21:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
It seems that this article is too focused on US media, and international examples would be good.
In Australia, for example, the row over left-wing bias in the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, an entirely government funded network) would be good. See http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=abc+bias&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryAU Wmoisis 04:06, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Holy crap, now that I look at this, much of this article is without attribution. The history of bias section, for example -- Carl Sagan once criticized the Flintstones? Is there a source for this, let alone the rest of the assertions in this article? These sections without attribution should be fixed or deleted. Stardog101 02:22, 28 November 2006 (UTC)stardog101
Hi all. I like this article. I have noticed some argumentative writing though and will collaborate with any editor on clearing any undue arguments up. If they are actual arguments from the literature then quotes can be added. Thanks AlanBarnet 04:41, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Several of us put in a few hours a month trying to keep this article encyclopedic. We are delighted to have you join us. Rick Norwood 13:47, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
There are a large number of sources. Sadly, conservative researchers tend to find liberal bias and liberal researchers tend to find conservative bias. Noam Chomsky finds middle of the road bias. There are also meta-studies of the studies, which tend to find all of the studies flawed.
The problem is that what is to the left and what is to the right is entirely dependent on where you stand. Rick Norwood 13:33, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
"Democrats are centrists (or even center right) in real world perspectives; that is -most counties outside of the USA."
Nope, not POV at all. The real world is every country outside of the US? This is just one particularly gross example, the whole article is a mess. I think it should be nominated for clean-up. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.170.202.142 (talk) 03:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC).
70.69.54.146 removed "This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject." And said, "Anyone who contributes to Wikipedia is an expert in this area!"
I am not sure if 70.69.54.146 was being facetious or not, but just in case he was serious -- no, the area of "media bias" is one that has been studied objectively by serious experts and few if any writers for Wikipedia are experts in this field. Rick Norwood 13:29, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Hi there, I'm from Germany and to me it seems like the article pretty much entirely focusses on the situation in the USA. Also, the greater part of it deals with the so-called "liberal" (not: conservative etc.) media bias.
Now, if over 80% of journalism students consider themselves to be liberal (as was said before, some of your "liberal" is our "common sense" or "conservative"), the whole thing doesn't seem so miraculous. My thoughts about that: It's a matter of education. You'll probably find more liberals among college students and graduates overall.
Now without sounding too condescending or "elitist", this may explain why "media bias" is percieved in the USA stronger than in most other democracies. I'm not an expert as concerns the American education system, but judging by what my American friends tell me, there are relativley gross differences between the standards of education provided by ordinary high schools on the one hand, and highly acclaimed universities and colleges on the other hand. This indeed leads to a situation in which those people who constitute the (assumably) vast majority of at least TV jounalists represent an elite.
To me, and probably most Europeans, that result seems less than spectacular. Having achieved a university degree is a highly respected thing here, and whoever has one is likely to be percieved as a person who just knows a bit more than others, even as someone who "knows better" than you and I and Joe Sixpack do, so you'd better listen to them. Hence, those folks dominate political opinion-making.
Whether this may be the false or the right approach, I don't want to evaluate here, there are probably as many pros as there are cons none of which are accaptable to anyone but me (j/k). What I'd like to point out is that "media bias" surprisingly might just not be a media issue, but a social issue; particularly a phenomenon of the U.S. society. Accusations of "elitism" in politics, and thus in terms of political media, are strange to most Europeans I know. From "our" point of view, that American problem, if you want to call it a problem, is not subjective or unbalanced media, but it's based on a vast education gap, combined with a disproportionately (to other countries) strong political influence of citizens with lower education. The latter, by the way, makes me wonder whether the liberal "mainstream" media are really so mainstream, as they seem to have little influence on roughly half of the population. Thanks for your attention.
--Kräuter-Oliven (talk) 21:37, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
About three weeks ago, I added some (sourced) information about how mainstream media often focuses more on Western disasters.
(For example, when the Virginia Tech massacre occured, many news sources presented detailed coverage of the incident. However, when Baghdad was bombed just two days later, there was very little coverage. In just a few days, there was no more mention of the April 18 bombings. Several months later, there is still sporadic coverage on the Virginia Tech shootings. Similarly, while numerous blog and forum posts offered condolences to Virginia Tech victims, very few posts offered condolences to victims of violence in Iraq.)
However, Rick Norwood (talk · contribs) reverted my edit, citing that it was "only of topical interest." However, this has become an important issue in recent times, since more and more people are becoming concerned about it. Thus, it should be mentioned in the article.
Does anyone else agree with me? --Ixfd64 03:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I typed in the words "Liberal media" into the search box and it brought me here. To equate liberal media with media bias is a grave, unsubtle mistake. There are both conservative and liberal media institutions in America as well as many other countries, and by equating the acknowledgment of metaphysical facts to NPOV or bias itself is both ignorant and sad. Liberal media should take me to a page with a picture of Keith Olbermann and conservative media a picture of Sean Hannity. This ain't rocket surgery, people. This.machinery (talk) 04:55, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. When people use the term 'liberal media' it is almost always used with negative connotations implying media bias. The same is true of the term 'conservative media'. The aim of using both those two terms is to deride their sources by implying they are more liberal/conservative than the objective 'truth'. Strathglen (talk) 00:26, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Bias is not the same as disagreement. If I say a person is lying because I dislike that person, or because I dislike what that person is saying, that is bias. If I say a person is lying because that person is, in fact, lying, that is reporting the truth, not bias.
It is often hard to tell when a person is lying, but when a person writes a book and says, "I lied," that is pretty good evidence.
While we were being lied to, anyone who did not believe the lies was accused of liberal bias. Now that yet another major Republican admits to lying, we are told that anyone who accepts that admission does so out of bias. This shows a misunderstanding of the meaning of the word "bias".
Rick Norwood (talk) 01:36, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Tell ya what, Rick. If you want to mention McClellan's book in reference to Halperin's situation, I would accept it in this format:
"With the release of the 2008 book by George W. Bush's press secretary Scott McClellan, there are some who contend that this is evidence of Mark Halperin being correct instead of biased. In his book, McClellan admits to lying to the media, and describes the contempt he felt for reporters who so easily believed his lies, and were cowed by the fear that if they exposed the lies, they would be accused of "liberal bias".[1]"
THAT is a statement of FACT. The way you have it written with the words "we now know that Halperin was right", you are stating an opinion as fact. Lets be intellectually honest.
I agree that the unsigned version above, beginning "With the release..." is better and should replace the current version in the article. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:11, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
What does the study on Fox News Viewership have to do with Media Bias? Let me guess. Republicans are big fat liars, and Fox News is full of Republicans, so people believe their lies? Seems a lot less to me to be about "Media bias" and more about attacking an instituition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.30.66.15 (talk) 06:20, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
First, let me point out to 216.41.138.70 that most Wikipedians read the comment at the bottom of the discussion page first, and so new comments should generally be posted at the bottom of the pages, with references to material higher up as necessary. Second, you should sign your posts with four tildes, so that SineBot doesn't have to do it for you.
Now, to the substance of your comments. I am not in any sense a "gatekeeper". You will notice that another editor reverted your post while I was offline. I'm just trying to keep the article encyclopedic. But I do thank you for expanding on your views here in Talk. I did not suggest that older people were wiser, just that they were better informed. If people continue to learn new things throughout their lifetime, they know more as they get older. But a fool is still a fool. On the other hand, I was wrong when I said most Fox News viewers were young. I based that on comments by my students, most of whom are young and most of whom who watch the news at all watch Fox. Here is the data I found when I looked it up. Yes, more young people watch Fox than any other news channel. But more than half of the viewers of Fox News are over 65.
If you read my comments above, you will notice that I raised some of the same questions about that study that you raise. The way to respond to this is not to insert a long editorial into the article. Instead, find a source that agrees that the study is biased. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:22, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
The presence and defense of the aforementioned study as a legitimate study in bias rather than an example of bias points to the problem with Wikipedia, spare time often trumps integrity. This ironically mirrors the mainstream media; sheer volume is the obstacle and opposition of the truth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.171.37.63 (talk) 00:11, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
The impression I get after reading this (long, painfully disorganized) article is that there is no liberal bias at all; the mass media is really suffering from a conservative bias! Silly me, all this time I thought that there was a liberal bias. I guess "left-wing" really does mean "centrist". I know there are more liberals than conservatives on Wikipedia, but seriously, friends, the tone and overall sense of this article takes credibility away from all of us. InFairness (talk) 04:36, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
The direction of the bias depends on where you are standing. The media are more liberal than the average citizen because the media are more cosmopolitan than the average citizen, but the media also bend over backwards to please the conservatives because the conservatives are customers of the media who need to be kept happy. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:36, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Carewolf and In Fairness' discussion is a perfect snapshot of the problem with this article. If I were of a conservative bent, this would be my take. InFairness is a political moderate or maybe even conservative who thinks the article is liberal in its bias. Carewolf is liberal and likes this, as such is representing the article as representing both sides. If I were liberal I might chime in and say something like "InFairness not only ar you wrong, but I think this article has a conservative bias!", and go on to sight spots in the article and so on and so forth. So long as this article contains as much content as it does, this will always be a massive problem. I think the article would be better served by trimming much of the discussion of what is contained within studies and books regarding media bias. I'm speaking about all of it, the studies and books from both sides of any particular type of bias. Better to reference examples where media bias was blatantly exposed as being media slant. Reference organizations that study media bias, being sure to note the general perception of that organization's political leanings as well. Avoid detailed descriptions of their studies, as many Wikipedia readers taking the time to look at this article probably already have strongly formed opinion about these organizations. By detailing too much the contents of the studies it only makes readers think the article is biased itself. People will think that one particular side (normally not theirs) didn't get as much article space as the other. I think a better way to summarize the various studies and books regarding media bias would be a brief paragraph describing their methods and findings, as well as criticisms of said studies or books. Don't think that there are any definitive studies, as an axiom that will always hold true is that there will one day be a better study that comes out and shows something contrary to the results of the study you're citing. I also think that it might be best to remove the Chomsky quote. He's too polarizing as many people not of a liberal bent already seem to think he comes across as a bit pompous, to put it mildly. There are people who may be able to swallow the section regarding his work if the quote were removed, that otherwise, upon seeing a Chomsky quote, would navigate away in disgust. If it would get more people to read the section all the way through, it might be better to remove it, as it just rehashes what is said anyways. Musing Sojourner (talk) 16:19, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Some have reported bias in the media. This has been attributed to presumptuous news reporting, in other countries as well as the United States. This has been a controversial issue for a number of reasons. Measures are currently being taken to develop a better understanding of what constitutes "media bias." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.22.81.124 (talk) 20:25, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Gwen Ifill, the scheduled moderator of the October 2, 2008 vice presidential debate, wrote a pro-Obama book called "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama," which is being released on January 20, 2009. [2] [3] [4]
This article redirects from Internet bias but doesn't seem to discuss it. The only occurence of "internet" is at the top in the redirect statement. 203.129.142.40 (talk) 21:36, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Media_bias&diff=prev&oldid=244115525
I felt that it did not bring anything to the article, resembled a "how to" guide and asserted certain values without sourcing them. forestPIG(grunt) 12:31, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
"[http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=6099188&page=1 Media's Presidential Bias and Decline; Columnist Michael Malone Looks at Slanted Election Coverage and the Reasons Why]": In my opinion, this article is entirely relevant to this wiki page. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 13:19, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
And The Washington Post just admitted bias. And recall in the past The New York Times admitted it is biased. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 19:09, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Media Matters is identified in the article as a progressive (that is, liberal) organization. Thus, the article presents first the conservative point of view, then the liberal point of view, each identified as such. Rick Norwood (talk) 18:38, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
I removed User:Katana0182 's addition to this section. I have two reasons: firstly, it seems to talk about a different thing than the first part. The first part is about "anglophone bias in the world media", which means "bias towards english-speaking countries." The part added by Katana0182 talks about use of the english language in general; it is not really about media bias. Secondly, I couldn't find support for its claims in the sources given. For example:
Some have suggested that any "anglophone bias" results from the fact that English is the one of the world's most widely spoken languages (by number of first and second language speakers) and one of the few languages, aside from French (Agence France-Press), Arabic (Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya), and Spanish to be commonly spoken in multiple countries and regions throughout the world.[38]
Who have suggested? I couldn't find this suggestion in the sources given. For this claim I also could find no support in the sources: "Anglophone bias, such as it is, could also be described as a product of distrust, as news sources published in non-international languages are often products of governmental media agencies, some of whom do not have a firewall between governmental propaganda and news."
No offense to the contributor at all, but to me this addition seemed both badly sourced and irrelevant, so I decided to remove it. Offliner (talk) 20:42, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
Isn't it just sad that under the section Organizations monitoring media bias, there is only a list of partisan groups? mcornelius (talk) 09:24, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
link I think this is a good source for the article. Grundle2600 (talk) 15:28, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
If this article reported every trivial, topical example of bias, it would quickly become longer than the whole rest of Wikipedia put together. The article needs to focus on examples of bias that will be remembered ten years from now. Rick Norwood (talk) 11:45, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Hilarious that someone's using the Cato Institute as sources on an article about media bias. This article has no hope of being unbiased if the sources are from the people who create the bias in the first place. You might as well also cite 'studies' by the Socialist Worker to balance them out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.83.6.63 (talk) 01:48, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
In my experience Cato is no more biased and has similiar quality of aggregated statistics to MediaMatter.org which is heavily referenced here as well. The reality is that most sources for this article will have a heavy bent one way or another. Denying this is quite silly. Musing Sojourner (talk) 15:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
This article needs additional citations for verification. (February 2007) |
The material above was just deleted by an anon. Since it's been tagged since 2007 I'm not going to restore it. If sources can be found it would be worthwhile to include. Will Beback talk 00:38, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure this is the right place to put this, but its an interesting quote in a Reuters article showing a clear bias in reporting on environmental issues: "An increase of up to 4 degrees Celsius has been felt across the Arctic in the past 30 years. While some scientists put it down to fluctuating weather patterns, environmentalist groups say it is caused by global warming due to human activity." I sourced it from here: http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/7129137/russian-pm-putin-orders-arctic-cleanup/ I figure, it could be used as an example of media bias regarding global warming, given the scientific consensus is that mankind caused global warming and this article is cleverly worded to make people think it is the other way around.--Senor Freebie (talk) 14:51, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
This was in the experimenter bias section but does not seem to me to be experimenter bias so I moved it to talk. RJFJR (talk) 17:42, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Another source of bias is the fact that some studies are reported by the media, and other stories are not. The case study "A Measure of Media Bias" discussed above was widely reported in the United States. George Orwell pointed out that in the UK during the last century businesses did not undermine their own interests by reporting leftist (anti-business or pro-labor) information. In the United States Ben Bagdikian, [5] documents a long history of advertisers pulling out support when media content becomes too controversial.
The number of times George W. Bush, Fox News, and Iraq are mentioned in this artcile is painfully awkward. This article suffers majorly from recency bias (in addition to a general Bush and Fox News are bad slant). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 15.170.158.120 (talk) 20:03, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
All I did for now is reorganize them, but some of them need to be used as sources for specific assertions in the article, and the ones that violate Wikipedia:External links need to be removed. 67.100.125.140 (talk) 07:56, 10 May 2009 (UTC).
Does the existance of a private discussion group of center/left journalist coes not "prove" that these journalists were, as a group, presenting biased news. Rick Norwood (talk) 15:09, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
The following post has been restored to the article:
"Some bias is not conjecture, and can be designed and coordinated. In February 2007, Washington Post blogger Erza Klein created a private organization called "JournoList" in order to facillitate the efforts of left-to-center journalists. Journalists with conservative leanings were not allowed membership. Leaks of the private group discussions include coordinated efforts and tactics used to shield candidate Obama from politically damaging associations in his past, and also to silence his critics by launching random charges of racism. Membership in JournoList is believed to have been 400 strong before being disbanded in the summer of 2010. Membership in JournoList eventually grew to include select members of universities, television news, foundations, and workers within the Democrat party.[http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=184597] A new group, "Cabalist", composed largely of the members of Journolist, has since formed.
First, I have no idea what "coordianted" means in this context. Second, the claim that bias is "not a conjecture" is not established in the cited sources. The sources show that some of the people on JournaList thought it wise not to report attempts to attack Obama using guilt by association. One person on JournaList thought such attempts were racist. Neither of these facts supports a claim that they were trying to "shield candidate Obama", only that they realize (as all educated people do) that guilt by association is wrong. Even the one person who called such attacks racist was answering the critics of Obama, not trying to silence the critics of Obama. In short, the paragraph claims that conjecture is not conjecture. Rick Norwood (talk) 14:10, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
This all seems a bit woolly and sourceless to me. Someone with more Wiki know how than me should take a look.LastDodo (talk) 17:10, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
As is, wikipedia is not a serious encyclopedia. It is left-leaning, at least in regards to the issue of it's media bias coverage. The term "liberal bias" definitely exists in our culture, and to NOT have an article on it amounts to leftist propaganda, albeit on a small scale. Someone here was mentioning that Galileo was so bold and revolutionary for stating plainly what he believed about heavenly bodies even though it wasn't popular at the time. We see that the pursuit of intelligence sometimes means admitting to the existence of things that we ourselves disagree with. It may be unpopular in academia to believe that a liberal bias exists in our media but it is obvious that it either a) exists-or that b) a significant number of people believe it exists. In either case, the concept deserves a page on wikipedia. The validity of its existence is something that should be discussed on the page itself. The idea of having a page simply on media bias is an obvious cop out and left leaning. The term "liberal bias" is common in our culture. There are pages dedicated to all sorts of other cultural beliefs (in a serious encyclopedia I would hope that ALL cultural beliefs would be covered), so why is there no article dedicated to the concept of a liberal bias in the media? At the end of the day, wikipedia needs to admit that the concept of a liberal bias exists, even if it simply perceived to exist. (CaptainNicodemus (talk) 15:25, 26 November 2009 (UTC))
The article is way too "americentric". I am not an American, and to me this article seems downright crazy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.85.91.56 (talk) 22:54, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
While trying to read through this article, it looks to me like there are many examples of studies that are then questioned at every point, with no real facts being presented anywhere. Looks like an arguing ground for conservative vs. liberal instead of a factual article. I think this entire article should be re-written, and just give an overview of what media bias is instead of disputing and debating various studies. None of this is factual informative information, instead it is argumentative and unecessasary comment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.68.102.230 (talk) 14:33, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Regarding telling the above poster to "write one", you are exposing the blatant leftist bias WP is known for. Any time someone tries to "write one" or to balance the spectrum or remove propaganda, the liberal WP gatekeepers delete it, and more often than not, they even delete the *discussion* of such changes.
So how can you tell someone to "write it", when putting anything other than liberal propaganda in WP is not allowed?
No, of course not, it makes sense to have one article covering the whole subject. And just because you perceive liberal bias does not mean everyone does. The US is a right wing country relative to most places, thus as a Brit, there seems to me to be a conservative bias in the US media. It all depends on your perspective.LastDodo (talk) 17:19, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
--216.114.194.20 (talk) 03:04, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Liberal bias is a myth perpetrated by the far right in this country. All major reporting, films, and radio have a conservative bias. The removal of the fairness doctrine destroyed sensible debate on politics in this country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.38.230.227 (talk) 06:16, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
I find it ironic that a WP article about media bias is so left-wing biased. Liberal bias in the media has *always* been the norm, yet this entire article skips all of this evidence, and instead only has a few cherry-picked (and extrmely poorly-sourced) Fox news slams by left-wing moonbats in this area. In recent months, keith Olbermann from MSNBC was suspended for donating to the Democratic party, and wikileaks has revealed that other journalists, namely Wolf Blitzer with CNN were actively discussing with White House officials which stories to cover up. Yet nary a peep on WP. Ridiculous. I hope someone is telling our next generationo not to use this WP tripe for their studies. --216.114.194.20 (talk) 23:12, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Media bias has been caught on tape. Will people please review the following then someone add something appropriate to this Wiki page:
Sample quote: "Employees at a CBS affiliate in Anchorage left an accidental voicemail for an aide to GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller in which they discussed and laughed about the possibility of reporting on the appearance of sex offenders at a Miller rally. And they chatted about responding with a Twitter alert to “any sort of chaos whatsoever” including the candidate being punched.'"
Thank you. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 02:08, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
It's funny how I read how leftists do this. They start several accounts in their moms basements and then attack anyone who wants Wikipedia to be fair. But there are several articles from respected news sources discussing he Essjay affair and other Wiki scandals. The editors think they're protecting the gates of a new leftist revolution but they're just making themselves look like hacks by suppressing the creation of a leftist/"liberal" bias. Why not make a conservative bias page and a leftist/"liberal" bias page? Because the other people are exactly right, if you keep it as one page you can hide one of your main advantages as leftists: the leftist dominated media. I mean come on guys you make yourselves look so utterly foolish and contemptible when you act like you're children and we're dumb children who will believe you if you just lie and obfuscate enough. But sorry we're going to tell you what incompetent hacks you are as long as you leave up these monuments to your childish attempts at sabotaging the truth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.119.35.93 (talk) 12:16, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
There are the obvious consequences, like misleading the public, and many examples of this, but that has already been touched upon in the article. But the consequences within a news organization have not really been discussed.
All news organizations have their own stance on Media bias. Whether or not they are honest about it is irrelevant, but some are much more strict than others. Fox news for example seems to have a loose standard for enforcing neutrality. It is generally accepted that they are a right leaning organization. If the fox anchors appear to be biased, no consequences are really brought against them. That is the case with many American news organizations because there are no restrictions set regarding bias. A news organization can be as bias as they want, without any consequences from the organization itself.
News organizations in Canada however have more restrictions, so it is up to that company to enforce neutrality. CBC for example is very careful about what they say, and whether or not it comes across as neutral. If an anchor says something that's biased, they could be suspended, depending of course on the severity. But there is a long editing process before anything is stated on air, so usually a biased statement doesn't make it very far.
Consequences are hard to enforce because bias is fairly subjective. In most cases it is debatable as to whether or not something is biased or not. That is why bias is such a recognizable problem, but remains difficult to fix. 216.46.14.58 (talk) 13:53, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
I would like to help improve this article. There are several items in this article that need work, starting with how media bias is defined in the first sentence, to the addition of scholarly research.
The introductory sentence sees problematic to me. Here is what it says now:
Media bias refers to the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of which events and stories are reported and how they are covered. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening the standards of journalism, rather than the perspective of an individual journalist or article. The direction and degree of media bias in various countries is widely disputed.
Example problem: "the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media" is ok-ish, but "in the selection of which events and stories are reported and how they are covered" is actually not a bias, it is gatekeeping. Gatekeeping can be a factor in media bias, but is a completely separate topic.
A better start (with scholarly sources): The term "media bias" can have varied interpretations, but is often seen by news consumers as the opposite of accuracy, fairness, and balance in reporting, or the perception of favoritism towards one side of an issue over another. (Lee, 2005; Rouner, Slater, & Buddenbaum, 1999).
Another problem I'm seeing is the insistence that because many journalists are left-leaning (true), their reporting is therefore inherently left-leaning (not true). This statement is not supported by any sources, it is just an assumption.
There is a lot of POV in this article, which is expected, as this topic can (in the words of Grandpa Simpson) "angry up the blood". I will post potential changes on the talk page first. ScamperCat (meow) 02:27, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
Many accusations of media bias refer to entertainment media, for example what's-his=name's attack on the tv series about the unwed mother (how soon we forget).
Actually, it was a politician criticising entertainment television for liberal bias. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:38, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
I had a general and a specific comment. The general comment is that I certainly agree that the section entitled "Scholarly treatment of media bias in the United States and United Kingdom" is far too long. The entire section deals almost exclusively with a tiny part of media bias; namely, political bias in contemporary US politics. That should perhaps be the name of an article where most of this section should reside. We could shorten it substantially, in my opinion, by simply listing the various scholarly enquiries that are most often cited along wih their general conclusions and skip the criticisms of those conclusions by others.
My specific comment. In the section "Experimenter's Bias," it states: "Research into studies of media bias in the United States shows that liberal experimenters tend to get results that say the media has a conservative bias, while conservatives experimenters tend to get results that say the media has a liberal bias, and those who do not identify themselves as either liberal or conservative get results indicating little bias, or mixed bias.[29][30][31]" In fact references 29, 30 and 31 do not refer to this ostensible research. I could not find, in those references, any mention of a study finding that liberal expermineters see a conservatvie bias and vice versa. As a matter of fact I could find no evidence of any such study being conducted anywhere. This statement--though it strikes me as intuitively true--should be supported by accurate references or removed.
--Mindfingers (talk) 05:13, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Mentions of Fox as having a left/liberal bias left me gasping for breath. I assume Roger Ailes would be similarly surprised. Deconstructo (talk) 23:33, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Here is the question. On the one hand, the study that found that Fox News had a liberal bias is an academic study. On the other hand, it is not a reproducible result, and other academics have strongly criticized the study's methodology. So, does Wikipedia follow the standard that, to be significant, a result must be reproducible? If the answer is "yes", then that whole section should go.Rick Norwood (talk) 12:07, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Media bias is an argument that an imaginary collective "media" favors one side in political debates and therefore twists facts to suit an agenda; the concept is as broad and amorphous as "corporate bias," "religious bias" or "human bias."
This article makes no acknowledgment of the fact that "media bias" is a construct of pundits, politicians and ideologues who want to sound scholarly when proclaiming their point of view as the only truth; alleging media bias should be considered a form of prejudice, a pseudo-objective attack on mass communication in the same way "intelligent design" adherents attack science.
The article has no substance unless it documents the rise of "media bias" as an argument promoting a political point of view -- and nearly always alleged by right-wing politicians against journalism itself. 72.148.152.214 (talk) 19:39, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
Rick Norwood (talk) 14:17, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
You guys never explain why Obama's "corpse man" didn't make him as dumb as Palin (who you all know by one name because you most certainly do use your websites to coordinate attacks against conservatives--see Journolist which still exists just with new names). No one asked how Obama got into Harvard without even having command of common English pronunciations. This is the essence of bias. When an "anchor" gets tingles over Ibama, that's bias. Everyone has bias sure. So make a general bias page. Then let the 75-85% of people who believe in MSM leftist bias make another page. It can't be any worse than the pathetic attempt at propaganda you have up right now! This party won't go on forever my teen leftist friends. Eventually someone's going to make a better online encyclopedia if you guys keep messing this one up! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.119.35.93 (talk) 12:48, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
FYI, some quotes on media total-support of Democrat president Obama: “Obama’s ongoing project is to stay above responsibility and appeal to low-information voters.” ... “There's not a Republican who can pull that off because to pull this kind of thing off as Obama is, you need a totally compliant and slavish media, totally on your side and willing to carry your water and your message and your talking points each and every day. And then you need no conscience.” [EIB quotes] — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 14:55, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Speaking to the PREMISE of the article, media bias is liberal bias that is bigger than media. Here is an example of media propping up Liberal views of AGW: "... Just this week, 35,000 activists marched in Washington D.C. to protest Keystone for its contrived environmental impact and its alleged effect on global warming (never mind the fact that 31,000 scientists have signed a public petition saying there is no scientific basis for human gas emissions causing catastrophic global warming)."
The point is media bias (and improving this article.) Here is another. "Juan Williams on Lib Media..." . The first sentence of this thread ("Premise?") asked. Carrie Lynnette Sims Shipp (talk) 23:45, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the link, a good example that you can get any facts you want, if you just go to the right web page. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:11, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
Great article! When any of my liberal friends says that W. Bush is stupid, I tell them, "He arranged to give almost a trillion dollars in free money to his Wall Street buddies and left you paying the bill, and you think he's stupid?" Rick Norwood (talk) 12:13, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
What you mean "us", white man? :) Rick Norwood (talk) 13:33, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
Mentions of CNN and FOX but not a single one for MSNBC, the most biased network on the air? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.65.96.248 (talk) 16:13, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
The section on selectivity in the media contains the sentence "Because it is impossible to report everything, selectivity is inevitable." An editor objects to and has removed that sentence. My thinking is that the sentence is important to distinguish between selectivity, which is necessary, and bias, which is the subject of this article. This sentence makes it clear that not all selectivity is evidence of bias, as several editors of this article have asserted. Thus the importance of noting that it proves no such thing. But the sentence is obvious, even though the person who deleted it first claimed it was nonsense. Comments? Rick Norwood (talk) 18:40, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
All the bullshit about the media having a "liberal bias" is an intentional distraction from the fact that the media is run by large corporations representing fiscally-conservative interests. There is and never has been a "liberal media" in the US. A cursory glance at the US media shows that it supports and promotes the establishment POV, a POV that is decidedly conservative and risk-averse. Viriditas (talk) 01:16, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
Does anyone know of any accepted technical metric for measuring bias in prose?
I've seen some metrics concerning readability for educational & promulagtion purposes; it seems a disinterested measure of bias ought to be possible.
At the moment all we seem to have to go on is a to-and-fro of "authoritative opinion", and psychological assessments (which could themselves be biased).
Or have I missed something? One is one and one is one (talk) 00:24, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
The section scholarly treatment in the United States and the United Kingdom repeatedly asserts that the media has a liberal bias. Whether or not this is true, I believe the point of the article should be about what media bias is, not whether media has a bias.--ATMJR (talk) 04:02, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
Good job to everyone who helped write this page, you have created a perfect example of media bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.74.216.214 (talk) 22:18, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Ironic, isn't it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.135.167.146 (talk) 07:13, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Critiquing the Efforts to correct bias: One thing about this section of the article is that they start off this section almost blindly. There is no introduction or anything really to lead into how to correct bias. This part of the article had tons of relative information to the media bias topic, but in this specific part it gave more examples of how media bias occurs than how to correct it. It supplies examples of things that need to be fixed in order to correct media bias, but doesn't give full answers on how we are supposed to correct it as a whole. While it does give some ways to correct bias, I feel as though there could be more. It talks mainly about just news organizations and how they can correct bias, but not all media outlets. It may not include all media outlets that can be bias, such as social media and things as the like, but they may be because a lot of the information is outdated in this section. The information provided dates back to 2005 and 1991. There are no examples of how to correct media bias that is dated within the last 10 years. It also only brings up other country's media bias briefly. I feel as though this section could have a lot more up to date information. Other than the downsides of this article that I have stated, there is a substantial amount of useful and reliable information with good sources and direct quotes from organizations and people. There are just some aspects that could make this article better. BriSprague (talk) 00:59, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
In its effort to be neutral, the article posts an image that leaves the impression that media is uniformly biased between liberal and conservative in US (the PEW research image), but in fact more recent source from same research organization paints a different image - the bias is real. In itself, since this is an encyclopedia with a long term view, this is not a major concern. A second point: US is not the only place that has media; this article could use input from sources that reflect other countries, and I'm wondering if this article should not be linked to Freedom of the press article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.225.64.47 (talk) 15:04, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
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Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Metropolitan bias. It involves a topic which has been suggested to merge here. --Netoholic @ 18:37, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
Article as of now is mainly covering USA. What about adding a new section covering countries outside USA. Comming from Switzerland I could provide input on Europe. Interested?--0e7s (talk) 18:51, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
I believe this article focuses too strongly on whether there is political or other type of bias in the media rather than the way it is biased. For example in the British Newspapers, particularly the tabloids bias and outright lies are introducable as fact and opinion are mixed without any notice. For example a paper might proclaim 'Child molester on trial' and if he were shown to be innocent might proclaim: 'child molester freed' rather than sperating the facts about a man on trial and their opinion of whether he did it in a later editorial.
Regardless of politics I think it is clear (from the below) that the media is biased, following the definition that their own journalistic standards are not followed (eg fact checking). This is shown to be the case (UK) in that most libel trials go against (British) newspapers (If this were added I would find the source but for a period in the 80's the paper 'The Sun' was infamous for never having won a libel trial in its history). In my own sphere of work also which is very specialised the papers usually get their facts wrong when reporting it which results on various 'calls' being made by them to fix issues which dont exist. - omricon posted 2 January 2007.
If the quality or lack thereof of the argument and footnoting in this book by Professor Kuypers is about equal to those in the portion of the book "Partisan Journalism" I was able to read, that would show how he was able to "show" such a thing. Schissel | Sound the Note! 00:30, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
The conclusions of the study by Silverman must not be presented as statements of fact but at most as Silverman's opinion. It is clear that Silverman's article is basically a long op-ed that says as much about Silverman as about Reuters. For example, the phrase "the harm the blockade is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza" is judged to be "(a) an assertion, (b) exaggeration, (c) card stacking; and 4) atrocity propaganda". How can someone with such partisan opinions be held up as an objective judge of media bias? If Silverman is kept, I suggest this example be included so the readers can see what the study was really about. Zerotalk 05:35, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
Silverman's study is a scholarly article published in a peer-reviewed (refereed) academic journal. It is presented and included in this section as such. It is not an "op-ed". The final sentence describing the academic study makes clear that Silverman has drawn conclusions ("inferred") based on the data in the study. This is the way all academic studies are structured. 2600:1700:C530:6420:51DC:A076:EDBF:905F (talk) 15:24, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
Scholarly treatment in the United States and United Kingdom not useful, too long, then I noticed this: -- "This section may be in need of reorganization..."
So Make useful by adding a table of contents? Example, paragraph: "American Enterprise Institute study the coverage of economic news by looking at a panel of 389 U.S. newspapers...." to: American Enterprise Institute on economics — looks at 389 U.S. newspapers.
Or, just add that bold to the start of each paragraph for skimming? Cheers!
--2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:3044:A2C3:2683:987B (talk) 19:47, 4 November 2018 (UTC)Doug Bashford
I wrote a paragraph about the position of researchers who advocate for social media. Without this information, the subtitle "Social media bias" was incomplete and seemed excessively one-sided. In addition, I provided a link to a source of information for 2021 (while the paragraph cited older sources)
Sources I used:
- https://morningconsult.com/opinions/the-facts-on-social-media-bias/
- https://www.internetlivestats.com/twitter-statistics/
My edits are not related to the part of the article that the arbitral award identified as related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and for which editing requires special powers. --Persecuted editors (talk) 16:37, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
I've added new links (from trusted sources) and corrected the citation method from the previous source so that I don't feel like I'm infringing someone else's copyright. --Persecuted editors (talk) 11:00, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Alissalarocca.
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As a writer of an information essay why does bias information considered a bane in your write up 175.176.68.178 (talk) 02:05, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
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