Typically when people think of bias in the news they think of ideological bias (Liberal/Conservative). People say that FOX NEWS is conservative, NBC (MSNBC) is liberal, CNN is Anti-Trump liberal, etc. However, it is not that simple. There are several types of bias in the news, (see the attached file).
- Bias by Omission is when a reporter or network leaves out one side of the story (Liberal or Conservative).
- Bias by Selection of Sources is when a reporter or network including more sources that support one view over another.
- Bias by Story Selection is a pattern of highlighting news stories that coincide with the agenda of either the Left or the Right, while ignoring stories that coincide with the opposing view.
- Bias by placement – Story placement is a measure of how important the editor considers the story.
- Bias by labeling — Bias by labeling comes in two forms. The first is the tagging of conservative politicians and groups with extreme labels while leaving liberal politicians and groups unlabeled or with more mild labels, or vice versa. The second kind of bias by labeling occurs when a reporter not only fails to identify a liberal as a liberal or a conservative as a conservative, but describes the person or group with positive labels, such as “an expert” or “independent consumer group”.
- Bias by spin – Bias by spin occurs when the story has only one interpretation of an event or policy, to the exclusion of the other; spin involves tone – it’s a reporter’s subjective comments about objective facts; makes one side’s ideological perspective look better than another.
What I would like you to do for the discussion is to focus on Bias by Story Selection. Look online at some major political media outlets like: CNN (Links to an external site.), FOXNEWS (Links to an external site.), MSNBC, (Links to an external site.)AP News, (Links to an external site.)ABC News, etc. (Links to an external site.)
(Links to an external site.)
Identify political stories that you feel are relevant/newsworthy BUT are being ignored by one or more major news outlets. You may need to do a little research to really see if the story is missing or being ignored by putting it on the bottom of the website, etc. Your stories should be current and not be older than around 6 months. For your post you will need to find two stories. One that is being ignored by the liberal media and one that is being ignored by the conservative media.
- Briefly describe your 2 stories (you can link them as well) and say where they were found and where they were missing.
- Don’t forget to reply to two other students.
The discussion is worth 10 points. The rubric will help you with your post and replies. You can find it by clicking on the three dots in the upper right hand corner.
