Reflections on Media & Bias

This past week I was having a conversation with an individual at work who has shared with me some of their daily and lifetime stresses and challenges. In this conversation, the individual expressed their sense of despair, which they feel nearly every day due to isolation and a sense that others their age (boomer generation) are lost to the sensationalism of daily news and stuck in front of their televisions or social media feeds. They had identified a lack of critical thinking in their peers that led them to conclude that the media had polarized them and prevented civil conversation. Personally I had not been too surprised by this comment. It’s something I’ve heard a lot from my parents, friends, and through community conversations. What surprised me was that when I validated their experience and referenced that “things really seemed to kick up a notch” when Trump was in office, this individual looked at me seriously and replied “Well actually it was all better and more stable during that time period with Mr. Trump.”

I found myself a bit shocked with this comment. But rather than giving into a negative reaction, I chose to act out of a sense of curiosity. This allowed me to notice that I had made an assumption based on my biases that this person had liberal and progressive views like myself. I asked them how they got their news, and they replied that they had all but stopped listening to the news on their own since their spouse was watching CNN all day. They felt alienated in their own home and began referring to the “liberal bias of the media.”

My thoughts began to circle…I was not sure how to respond. I noticed that I have some common ground with this individual, a feeling that the news is overwhelming, difficult to keep up with, and at times spinning lies, fantasies, and myths. I heard in this person’s words and sadness that they were hurting, they wanted to engage but perceived people like me to be so polarized and persuaded by the liberal media that their only option was to disengage. I was able to see their humanity — that we had common ground in wanting to know the sources and reliability of media information. We both wanted to be able to apply critical thinking and digest multiple viewpoints in order to come to our own conclusions.

This led me to do some searching. I had learned about the myth of the liberal bias of the media which has been perpetuated by right-wing conservatives and their media. The myth is the subject of the documentary The Myth of the Liberal Media: The Propaganda Model of News, “which uses empirical evidence to look at ownership of the mainstream news media, filters that affect what news gets published, and examples of actual news coverage in order to show that conservative political and corporate interests significantly shape news coverage in the United States.”

I came across a report from the Pew Foundation based on a 2014 survey that “shows which news sources are used and considered trustworthy based on an individual’s political values (liberal or conservative). Note that this report measures the political leanings of the audience rather than the source itself.”

What we are learning here is that it’s complicated to detect biases, both our own and those of others, and the biases of new media. There is not one way to measure or monitor, even when we look at researchers who dedicate their careers to journalism and media communications. There are a couple of news sources that have devised systems of integrating bias rating into their dissemination of the news, including AllSides as well as this guide from the University of Michigan Library.

If anything, this interaction with this individual has allowed me to pause and reflect. Coming up for air I see that I need to reflect on my own thoughts and biases about the media in order to continue to engage in meaningful conversations with people on all sides. The individual I talked with in fact agreed to take a look at AllSides, which I shared information about in the course of our conversation. I look forward to talking with this person again.

Some questions to reflect and act on:

1. Where do I go for my news? How have I judged others for the sources they utilize?
2. How do my biases about race, class, gender, age, and more show up in my consumption (learning and processing) of the news? How do those assumptions help or hinder my process of anti-racism? What does it mean to be objective? Is it possible not to have biases? How can biases be helpful rather than destructive?”
3. How do I show up in conversations about the news and media? What emotions come up for me, and how do I typically respond to views that may oppose mine?
4. Am I aware of the corporate interests that impact my local news coverage? How do I get local news? How are journalists protected and held accountable in my community?

-Kelli from the Messaging Committee of SURJ Springfield-Eugene

Sources:

“Fake News,” Lies and Propaganda: How to Sort Fact from Fiction: https://guides.lib.umich.edu/c.php?g=637508&p=4462444