How Can We Spot Media Bias?
How Can We Spot Media Bias?
Sabe Hernandez Rodriguez
Ever wonder why Fox News uses words like “communist” and “violent” when describing people on the left and when those on the left call people on the right "Fascists". That is media bias, which is according to Julie Mastine of AllSides.com is “the tendency of news media to report in a way that reinforces a viewpoint, worldview, preference, political ideology, corporate or financial interests, moral framework, or policy inclination, instead of reporting in an objective way (simply describing the facts). A media outlet may reveal bias in how it reports specific news stories or which stories they choose to cover, i.e., deem more important than others to cover or emphasize.”
The news many of us watch CONTAINS bias! People must try to avoid these biases in order for you to learn from both sides of the political spectrum to better understand where the other person is coming from. For example, according to AdFontesMedia’s interactive media bias chart news sources like Democracy Now, Right Wing Watch, Salon, and MMFA (Media Matters For America) strongly lean to the left. While sources like The American Conservative, Daily Caller, Only American News, and The Five lean strongly to the right.
It is extremely important to stick to a non-bias media source. AdFontesMedia finds these sources across the internet. According to its website “In a biased and misleading news landscape, it’s essential to know where your information is coming from. That’s why we founded Ad Fontes Media: to help you navigate and know your news sources — in one place.”
So why else should you avoid bias in the media? Because bias can often mislead and influence how we think. You can be fed with helpful, thoughtful, and truthful news, or you can be misled and lied to by opinion-news. According to NSU Florida, “Studies show that consuming partisan news tends to influence viewers' opinions on different issues, often reinforcing confirmation bias, that is, confirming preconceived opinions on different topics.”
The political nature of the US during this time is why we need more center-oriented news, no conspiracies, no hateful bias, just the truth. This is a time where truth must come to life and push bias aside because we all yearn for the truth in some way, so we must be respectfully truthful to each other because what we want is what we should give: the truth.