Media Bias Analysis

Media bias refers to the bias of news producers and journalists that are in the mass media, reporting on a selection of events and stories and how they are covered. It is impossible to report everything, therefore, selectivity is inevitable. When watching or reading coverage on a specific topic, it is not difficult to detect the sources bias. The media will put their conservative or liberal spin on the information presented to their audience. This has been very obvious in recent days regarding the laws being presented to the Supreme Court regarding same-sex marriages. The coverage on this topic is either for or against same-sex marriage. The New York Times has a more liberal view, marriage is the union of people who love each other, regardless of their sexual orientation have the right to marry. However, CNN’s reporting is that of a conservative bias, marriage is the union of one man and one woman, same-sex relationships violates moral and religious beliefs of millions. According to the Pew Research Center, stories with more statements supporting same-sex marriage outweighed those with more statements opposing it by a margin of roughly 5-to-1. The news media coverage provided a strong sense of momentum towards legalizing same-sex marriage. When reading through articles from The New York Times and CNN, their bias is apparent through omission, source selection, story selection, placement, and spin.

Media outlets report in a bias fashion because it causes people to either strongly agree or disagree with what they have to say. If they can get a group of people to rally for or against what they say, they are more likely to share it with others who think the same, who in turn will share it with more people, thus giving them more readers and more money. It does not matter to said media outlets if people agree with what they say as long as enough people read it for them to make a profit.

The author of my news report was produced by Michael Pearson who is not an expert on this topic. When I searched to find out more about Mr. Pearson I found out the fact that he was only a part time journalist for CNN and his main job is photography. Also most of the articles I found that Michael Pearson authored were not about what is happening in the Middle East but about what is happening in the Ferguson case and a story about a Batman related shooting. This makes me believe that Mr. Pearson does not have all the facts because he has no other articles dealing with the Middle East. This article is a popular source not a scholarly source which means the article did not go through peer review. The author of the

Another factor in the liberal bias equation is media owners. It is known that the majority of the media elite is liberal, so, they will favor and get more connected with liberals. That means that

Those who work in the media are so afraid to tell the truth and decide to keep quiet instead because of what others might think of them. John Stossel, on the other hand, decided to speak nothing but the truth when he announced that he was a libertarian with strong beliefs and began his own show. Bernie Goldberg was another person who admitted to the media being biased and has said that because of the truth, he has lost many of his former “friends”. Everyday people sit down in front of their TV to watch the news expecting to hear what one wants to hear. People watch news sources that have the same mindset as them and know it, but will continue to do so because of wanting to stick to their own beliefs. Sometimes it can be difficult to spot bias in the media for some because of how believable and inaccurate the media can be. Nevertheless, there is definitely bias in the media and the six powerhouses have their own beliefs and will only give out information they believe is

Today it seems almost impossible to get a straightforward answer on any major topic from the media. All sources of media have a specific audience that they are intending to hear or view the information that they have prepared, therefore they will cut bits and pieces out so that only the message they are trying to get across will be received. So indeed there is a media bias, and yes it more often than not slants towards the liberal view point, as many reporters and journalists have liberal views themselves.

I chose these outlets to develop a further understanding of the bias in national media. In A Social-Science Perspective on Media Bias, Tim Groseclose and Jeffrey Milyo present their findings as evidence that the majority national news outlets, where the brunt of Americans get their news, have an obvious liberal bias that they believe “influences both public opinion and voting behavior (305)”. Both cities of these publications, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. have a stereotype of being extremely liberal. Washington D.C. was called the most liberal city in the U.S. in a recent Gallup poll in 2014 (Swift 2014). However, location is not the sole factor of ideology. I researched this by comparing the two publications and based my understand of these

During this week I investigated many different news sources and different tactics they use. My research has shown the incredibly strong bias that the media has. To get a full grasp of the biases I had to use source diversity. My sources ranged from social media, to television, to web-based articles. Through my research, I discovered the effective and prevalent uses of loaded language, social media, sensationalism, bias in quotes, and the role of gatekeepers in media.

Many journalists are predominately liberal and are considered more liberal that the general public. They have a way of manipulating news to help Democrats and the liberal agenda. “Strong conservatives and Republicans are more likely to distrust the media news” (Lee Tien-Tsung).

Every kind of media has there own bias that they put into the news that the station is reporting. They will use words and images that bring your mind to a certain political party. Some people can see that the media is slanted left on the political scale but others do not see it. What people need to do is to identify the words and terminology that the media is using to see if there is any bias involved. People also have a problem when they read an article and read it like it is the only truth. When people do this their reaction may be different than if they knew what kind of bias the author had.

Media sources are categorized as liberal or conservative, both have some similarities, but are also quite different. CBS News is considered a liberal source and one of the breaking news story’s headline on their website is, ‘Tulsa cop charged in death of unarmed black man’ while CNN has this headline, ‘Officer Charged : Tulsa police officer faces manslaughter charge in shooting.’ (CNN) Although they both have the same headline they both have different articles geared towards different views. CNN gears toward the side of the victim’s family, such as inserting several quotes stating, “ This is a small victory” Crutcher’s twin sister Tiffany said, as well as, “The chain breaks here. We’re going to break the chains of police brutality,” she added, “We know the history.” (CNN) While, CBS rarely adds the viewpoint of the victim’s family, except for one that talks about Crutcher’s family relieved for the closing and that the family is “preparing for war.” (CBS) In this case these news sources use the objective of Bias by spin, because they spin towards one side or the other, and uses tone to persuade the reader to one side or the

     The media is often considered to be biased. The reason for this is because they do not act neutral on the things that they report on. They usually give their point of view and tend to warp the information so it’s easily digestible by the average person. This type of “nugget feeding,” can influence the judgment of some one who has no idea what is going on. The media tends to

In Dealing With Media Bias, Bernie Goldberg argues that the problem with bias is the fact that news reports release what are so-called “truths,” yet state facts “filtered” through a liberal prism. The main problem is that too many “like minded” people are making the decisions on what the audience gets to read and view on television. The more people who watch the news on a “one sided” perspective and start to believe it, the more they’ll continue to gather false information from the same source, leading to not caring for the rest of peoples’ opinions. These other opinions may claim the “real” facts that one should live off of. Living off a biased perspective is not right, knowing one should be shown everything that goes on in the story, without anything being left out. Networks need a reality check and people do also. An individual should not be biased and believe everything seen because are the facts honestly true? Favoring one side of the story, claiming you are right and there is nothing else to it, trying to prove to others who think different are “wrong” is definitely not the way to

The question of the media having a liberal bias definitely been around for some time now. Because the media has received so many complaints about having this slanted view some think that the media has changed. According to E.J. Dionne's article `Liberal Media Bias Is a Myth' the media has gotten better. He states that on social and cultural issues, the media was reporting more objectively (2002). In his article he brings up the issue that now that the media is trying to not be so liberal they are now going to have a new bias. It is a constant battle.

Media has been playing a significant role in our daily lives by developing our personalities, enriching our knowledge and providing us with different sorts of information. It has a tremendous power in framing cultural guidelines and shaping political dissertation. If the information provided to the U.S. citizens is distorted, then they cannot make informed decisions on the matters of public policy. Thus, it becomes vital to the American democracy that the news media and its institutions remain unbiased, fair and accurate. Media bias happens when a media systematically and persistently emphasize one particular point of view that is usually below the standards of professional journalism. There can be various reasons for media bias, some of