O’Reilly proves: Liberal Bias or Media Judgment?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,445548,00.html
(For the sake of this post, I’ll accept that the report is factually accurate, though I don’t claim to know how the study was done or if it is a fair and accurate study)
In the article above Bill O’Reilly accuses other networks of being biased which leads me to an interesting question. How do you determine bias?
Sure, it’s easy to say “the guy that doesn’t like my candidate is biased”. The right wingers all say the media is controlled by the Left. The above article is entirely about trying to prove the point. To paraphrase O’Reilly’s argument:
The Project for Excellence in Journalism looked at the media for the percentage of negative articles aimed at each candidate.
All Media, 57% of McCain’s stories were negative, 29% for Obama.
Newspapers: 69% for McCain, 28% for Obama
NBC: 54% McCain, 21% Obama
MSNBC: 73%, McCain, 14% Obama
Fox: 40% McCain, 40% Obama
Thus, they’re all biased, we are fair and balanced.
——-
Here’s two quickie definitions before I continue.
Bias:
“a. A preference or an inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment.
b. An unfair act or policy stemming from prejudice.
Prejudice:
“A judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts.”
That set me thinking. The facts O’Reilly listed don’t really prove bias. They prove opinion and balance. Bias, as my definition shows, requires prejudice. Which requires someone to prejudge. At this point most people in America have judged the candidates for themselves, thus we are post-judgment. Thus the problem isn’t that the media is biased, it’s that it is Judgmental.
(As a quick aside, I don’t believe any American can honestly claim impartially in our own election either…)
A large portion of the Media (right or wrong) have judged the candidates and their actions and that comes through their reporting. Which then leads to two questions,
Should our Media express their own opinions, or just report objective facts?
And
Why have the Media judged McCain more harshly than Obama?
Now to the first question, I’ll point out that while complaining about Media making judgments, O’Reilly is making a judgment of his own, which is ironically hypocritical. He read the objective facts and made a subjective judgment that the other networks are “unfairly” biased. That’s judgment, but I don’t criticize him for it. Only fools take in data without making personal judgments. I would say it’s fair to say O’Reilly doesn’t mind opinion and judgment in the Media, he just cares about balanced opinion and judgment.
Which really was what his evidence proves, a lack of balance, not presence of bias. But should the news be balanced?
The Media have certainly given McCain more trouble. But again, that in itself isn’t evidence. Suppose hypothetically McCain was running against Hugo Chavez. Would we want the media to be balanced? Would it be fair to demand or expect balanced? What would we say if Fox News had 40% negative articles on Chavezand 40% negative on McCain. It’d be ridiculous and horrible in my view.
Clearly, we expect our Media to make a few judgments. We want them to fact check and tell us when they catch someone lying. We want them to do objective research into their policies and report the results. So, with the idea that perfect balance isn’t the goal, Why have the Media judged McCain more harshly than Obama?
That is the golden question, I don’t know the answer and I won’t pretend to. But I will list a few possibilities I’ve considered. Firstly, though, that it’s unfair to just trump it up to “Liberal Bias”. That’s an easy scapegoat but is in itself the embodiment of hypocrisy as that would be prejudicial bias.
1. Anti-Bush sentiment. Bush has a 26% approval rating. If the Media were perfectly balanced and 100% non-partisan, I would imagine that low level of approval of status quo would result in more negative reports on the incumbent party.
2. Herd Mentality. If the herd is going in one direction, it’s easier to follow. I have very little respect for many people in the Media and I personally think this is their biggest problem and the cause of most of their problems.
3. Economic Problems. The Media are actually people. They suffer the same fears we suffer through, in a bad economy one would expect that fear to lash out through their reporting.
4. Intellectual and similarity Reasons. Obama clearly strikes the more intellectual image. Whether he’s actually smarter or not I don’t know, but he carry’s himself more like an intellectual . Most people in the Media are college graduates. Moreover, it is a profession of investigation, analysis, writing and speaking. Obama’s nature is definitely more closely associated with Media types. Imagine neither candidate was a politician. Imagine them in different jobs. Can you imagine Obama host of say Meet the Press? I can see that easily. How about McCain? In another career I see him as coach of a foot ball team or an Admiral in the Navy. (Okay, this last point is very subjective, but since I’m discussing subjective bias, I think it’s fair. Plus, I would love to see McCain coaching my Ravens.)
5. Reasonable Judgments of Facts. If you have two candidates and one makes multiple factual lies and the other does not, one would expect that to have an impact.
6. Reasonable Judgment of Policy: If you have two candidates and one has better policy, one would expect that to have an impact.
7. Reasonable Judgment of Character: If you have two candidates and one has better character traits, one would expect that to have an impact.
8. Reasonable Judgment of History: If you have two candidates each one will have various mistakes and accomplishments in their past, one would expect that to have an impact.
9. Reasonable Judgment of Polls: Well, maybe this isn’t reasonable, I’d like to see polls disappear personally. But the obvious fact is, whatever the polls show, the Media will talk about endlessly, and will no doubt throw in all the perceived reasons why it’s one way or the other.
10. Better story telling. On this one, I will actually take a stand and say that Obama being elected President makes a better story. Media types are storytellers. I imagine that the simple idea of America electing the first African American would drive positive stories towards Obama. Fair or not, electing “another white guy that was in the military” isn’t as compelling a story as “half-black son of a goat herding immigrant, is elected president.”
11. Political Bias. Last, but not least. Liberal bias is real. How strong is that bias is part of the Golden Question from above, and again, I won’t wager an answer. Certainly the crowd at MSNBC (starting with Olbermann and Maddow) are Liberals and they definitely knew who they were backing before they knew who the nominees were. Likewise with Sean Hannity and O’Reilly. I will make only one point on this, I don’t think political bias here is too bad as long as the bias is upfront. I like Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Watch for just a minute and you know he’s a Liberal. Same with Rush Limbaugh. No apologies, no mercy. I like that. Just so long as that judgment isn’t hidden and both sides have equal access to the airwaves.
And thusly, I guess I’ll end this the way I started it, with O’Reilly’s report. I like him. I like his opinions, I like his show, and I like his reporting. I don’t think he proved bias, but I think he’s right to want balance. But what’s balance? What’s fair?
I don’t know.
Leave a Reply