News media have always been biased and occasionally misreport things, and with monumental issues up for consideration today like health care, global warming, gun control and the like, it is more important than ever that we are able to critique their work.
For a recent example, MSNBC reported that a white man carried an AR-15 rifle to a protest about health care and government spending, and the news analysts went on to say the protesters were part of a racist hate group that wanted to kill our president. It turned out that MSNBC had edited the video by cutting and pasting it to conceal his race, and the man was actually black, and his carrying of the firearm was both legal and peaceful.
When we see and hear lies like this, it can skew our opinion of issues and make us discredit those who are on one side of an issue if the lie is not caught. Worse, when information comes from a news source that generally agrees with our view on things, it is even easier to overlook a lie as we tend to take it as truth without question - this is called confirmation bias. These things, however, can be overcome with some simple analytical techniques.
While it would be very useful to know about structures like Toulmin's Model of Argumentation, types of logical fallacies and the rules of Oxford-style debate, I'm going to focus on one technique from my studies that is simple and easy to implement called triangulation.
Generally, in social science research, triangulation means that a research result is confirmed by approaching the same question from other angles to "triangulate" in on the truth as much as possible. That is, if one interviewer concluded that a person liked a new product, a second or third researcher would review the interview to see if they had a different interpretation. The outcome is often that these multiple views produce a set of points that all three agree on and another set of points that they do not agree on.
When it comes to news media, I've found this technique to be helpful in evaluating any given news story. Take the example of the protester above. Having viewed the same video on another news station or online, the unedited version would have clearly shown the man to be black. This investigation would allow you to find a few simple truths: people gathered at an event, some people were carrying firearms openly, one man carried an AR-15 and that man was black. You would also be able to declare other statements as questionable or false: the armed people posed a threat, people were protesting the president himself and they object to the president's race.
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Another great article Ken!
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Fact checking Ken shows: 1) MSNBC's footage did not fit the speculative remarks but events did. There were about a dozen people with guns at the event in question one of which was black of which they used the video of, obviously a bad choice of video in relation to the comments. Whether the other guys who carried weapons were racist is speculation (maybe a more interesting question is whether speculation in the media is okay or if so how much is okay). 2) The generally accepted estimates are the ones released from the DC fire department which put attendees at about 70k, if you want to claim they have liberal bias you should prove it or at least explain why they would have a bias. To pretend that they're biased in some way is the ultimate form of intellectual dishonesty. Sources: http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0809/Righty_bloggers_slam_MSNBC_over_gun_clip_network_responds.html on the protest: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/sep/14/tea-party-photo-shows-large-crowd-different-event/
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The CT publishing an article about avoiding misreporting. I'm choking on the irony.
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Here's a great idea: Let's all write columns about the things we learn in our introductory classes. Then we'll apply our basic understandings of complex theories to giant social issues. We'll arrive at reductive conclusions and have a sharper understanding of the world!! Seriously, I hope Ken Stanton isn't a student in the Media Studies department. If so, he's doing their program no favors.
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To the Anon below me: hard for you to comprehend the concluding paragraph, apparently, where Ken lays out the point of the article. It is meant to be an introductory level piece, and considering how many people are incapable of comprehending that media has any bias at all, this is good advice. Lost on you, obviously.
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@Anon 11:29am - Fact checking your sources shows horrible failure on your part to see the exact point of this article - SINGLE SOURCES OF INFO ALWAYS HAVE BIAS. Your politico blog (blog = least reputable of all sources) fails many times. The third paragraph drags in red herrings - conveniently, very controversial topics - in attempts to discredit those making note of the racist actions of MSNBC. Also, Chris Matthews got his facts handed to him when he interviewed one guy who carried at a protest. Further, in the fifth paragraph the announcers show their ignorance when they call an AR-15 an "automatic" weapon - it's semi-auto. The politifact article only discredits one photo from the 9/12 March, not the whole thing. Again, you missed the point of the article completely.
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To tell you the truth I didn't read this article, but I did run over a gecko on my way to file a claim with my car insurance. So really there is no good news.
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Wow.. so many personal attacks, must be the truth offended some readers. Too bad we have so many childish readers of the CT.
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To previous anon: Offended by the "truth"? All human communication is subjective and biased. Honestly, I'm more offended that this article passes for publishable material in a university newspaper.
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Coming from someone who isn't even willing to publish their name, you get a critique of what is "publishable material." Does anyone here have a point? There were two posts with actual substantial conversation, and the rest nothing but bickering. Is the idea of media bias too much for young adults to handle?
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It is offensive to the uniformed men and women of the Washington DC police and fire departments to dismiss them and say they had a liberal bias. Not every source has a political bias, but it is important to check the sources. Washington DC Fire Department said 70k, and Glenn Beck's University of 'I don't remember' said 2 million. It is not right to just average the two and conclude that the true number is around 1 million. The true number was 70k. End of story.
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Way to make the author's point John F. September 21, 2009 "DC Fire Department Report" Quote Regarding September 12 Event Misrepresents Agency Policy In reference to the September 12th Tea Party event held in Washington DC, quoting a “DC Fire Department Reportâ€Â, regardless of what any media reported, the size of the crowd of those who attended this event were never estimated by DC Fire & EMS. Any reports contrary to this are false. The DC Fire & EMS Department does not estimate crowd sizes. A Twitter posting estimating the crowd gathering at Freedom Plaza only as “large, possibly as many as 60 thousand†stated that it was an early estimation of that specific area (Freedom Plaza), not the number of participants in the event." http://newsroom.dc.gov/show.aspx/agency/fems/section/2/release/18165
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I don't know how this even got to be a question of liberal vs. conservative. The article mentions issues from both sides, and the two discussed in detail are relatively non-partisan.
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According to http://twitter.com/dcfireems/status/3936606105 . The DC fire dept did offer an estimate but stated it was unofficial. The post linked 2 posts below me was just reiterating that these were not official estimates. Someone in the DC Fire department did make the estimate as it was from their twitter feed, however they stated it was unofficial. John F is therefore correct.
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"... it was an early estimation of that specific area (Freedom Plaza), not the number of participants in the event."
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We've resorted to citing Twitter as a viable source of info. Once again, this is why you need to read this article folks - you don't get it!
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Well when the twitter is published by the organization in question then yes it is an acceptable source...
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is there a difference between bias and priorities of a reporter?
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