For the most part I actually think the media does a good job of not tipping their hand. When I watch Brian Williams on NBC his inflection and expressions are almost always consistent. They do often (if not always) at least give a quote or two from both sides of an argument.
The kind of bias I find most grating and bothersome is the most subtle kind. NPR is blatantly biased, and everyone knows it. Fox News is biased, and everyone knows it. The bias of those two is less troublesome because it is known, accepted, and (to a certain degree) acknowledged.
The kind of bias that is the most detrimental to intellectual honesty is the kind that hides in the guise of objectivity. Take for example a poll conducted last week by CNN. The question posed was "Do you think the U.S. can or cannot win in Iraq?" Here are the results:
Now let's use this chart and play a little game. The game is called "create the headline". It works like this: look at the chart, and make a headline that accurately tells the reader what this poll concluded. Go ahead and play now.Okay, here's what I came up with: "Americans Divided Over U.S. Prospects in Iraq".
Perhaps you came up with something similar. If you did, good for you. Unfortunately, headline writers don't always like to be objective and honest. Here is the actual headline from CNN.com:
Factually accurate? Yes. Intellectually honest? I would argue not. The larger problem with biased decisions such as these is that they exploit the reality that most Americans don't read the article. They read the headline, get the gist, and move on. Obviously, people can use stats to lie. CNN, in this case, used the data to create a headline that falsely leads people to the conclusion that over half of Americans think we cannot win in Iraq. CNN's survey had other questions in it, too. The data from those questions could have been used to bias the data in the other direction if they so chose. For example, they could have reported that only 21% of Americans support an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Or they could have reported that support for the troop surge is increasing. While both of those are factually honest claims, they both represent biased selection of data (see the poll results for yourself).
It is a great irony that in our age when there is more information available at our fingertips than ever before, people are still generally uninformed. If Joe American took the time to read the headline, CNN's bias would become as blatant as that of NPR or Fox News. Instead, news outlets like CNN know they can go on under the guise of objectivity and slant their presentation to influence the audience. Sadly, the average American doesn't even know what is happening to them.
[Editor's Note: Thank you to all who expressed concern for me during this prolonged absence from posting. No, I am not dead, nor am I in the infirmary. I just hit a patch of days at work wherein I left my house at 5:30am and got home around 9:30pm. We all know that when that happens, some things have to give. The first one, quite sadly, was the VoterVault. Back in the saddle. End Editor's Note]
10 comments:
Great to have you back.
I won't argue that NPR and Fox aren't biased. I love NPR, but I know that they don't always give the conservative side of the story. But their big advantage is that they're more serious. They don't report on celebrities and they tend not to be as sensational as commercial news. CNN.com is looking more like TMZ.com all of the time. And don't even get me started on the coverage of a certain blonde model's untimely death. Fox may be the worst offender in this area. NPR's refusal to stoop to sensationalism and pointlessness is reason enough to make me a listener.
Your analysis of that one CNN headline is missing something, though. The question they have to ask is 'What's newsworthy about this study?' They could have gone the other way and said 'Less than half of American think we can't win in Iraq,' but that's not newsworthy. The normal state of things is for almost all Americans to think that we can win any war. We're patriotic and we generally stand behind a President in wartime. Under normal conditions, even if it had been 20% that think we can't win, that would have big been news. The numbers in the study show how badly we think things are going.
danny,
As much as NPR makes me pull my hair out, I have to agree with your take on what they do. If they make me pull my hair out it at least means that I am listening. They certainly are more serious and less sensational. For that I applaud them. Of course, I stand behind my general take on them that they are strongly biased toward the Left.
As to your your questions of "What makes something newsworthy?", you have a pretty good point. That level of opposition is very high, and certainly should not be ignored. My problem with the headline is two-fold: one, that it is deceitful, clearly implying that OVER half of Americans think we cand win. If they wanted to point out that an exceedingly large number of Americans think we can't win, write a headline to that affect: "More Americans than Ever Think We Can't Win" or "Outlook for War at its Lowest Levels Ever". But to say "Less that half of Americans" implies that more than half are on the other side. That is intellectually dishonest.
My second problem with it is much more broad, and the point upon which you and I would disagree: namely, that I believe the media has become so pessemistic, and so biased against the war, that they now have a vested interest in ensuring that we are unsuccessful in Iraq. This headline is just another example of that--I would argue that it is purposefully misleading people about the level of opposition to the war because CNN is biased against the war and is willing to distort facts to favor their political leanings. Hope that makes my position more clear.
It's good to be back. Thanks for reading, Danny.
One more thing, while we are CNN-bashing. When they have a story about a poll, they used to always have a link to the poll data, so one could always fact-check their claims. They are starting to move away from that. Even today in their Politics section they have a story all about a poll, and they do not allow the reader to see the raw data. I suppose to CNN we are not intelligent enough to read the data and draw our own conclusions. We need their writers to spoon-feed us the dumbed-down version filtered through their own bias.
I used to go to CNN.com to see what the top story was, but I don't even do that now. I subscribe to the rss feeds for Google News and BBC. I skim the headlines and most of it is unimportant. I'm more likely to find out about a major news event second or third hand. Then I'll hear about it in detail the next morning on the NewsHour podcast.
I don't buy for a second the suggestion that "the Media" is the reason we're not doing well in Iraq. I don't believe that most media companies want the US to lose and even if they did, they don't have the power to make things go as badly as they have. I'm reading State of Denial now and it's clear to me that the government is making enough mistakes to bungle the war without any help from the media.
Anyway, we do agree that CNN is the lowest common denominator and watching them may in fact make you stupider. But Fox is even worse.
I don't buy for a second the suggestion that "the Media" is the reason we're not doing well in Iraq.
Neither do I. Can the media have such an impact? I would have to see one seriously well-documented research study to prove even coorelation, let alone causation. What the media can impact is American perceptions, which in turn have impact on political action. You are probably well-familiar with all the discussion about the media in relation to Vietnam. When they interviewed North Vietnamese leaders after the war, they were very clear that they were getting absolutely destroyed on the battle field, yet the North won because U.S. perception of the war turned--in large part because of the media--after the Tet Offensive. I am quite hesitant to link the two wars, but the media certainly had an effect there, and could have one here.
I don't believe that most media companies want the US to lose and even if they did, they don't have the power to make things go as badly as they have.
Again, with the second half I agree. I don't think they have the power to cause events to go badly. They clearly have the power to impact policy decisions. As to the first part, I would say that in a normal situation their default position is to support the U.S. At this point, however, they have become so attached to reporting the negative that it would be difficult to imagine them reporting positive turn arounds in Iraq. For example, a couple weeks ago I heard this on the news: "After three days of quiet in Baghdad, violence rocked the capital once again". As you pointed out in your first comment, they make news of the abnormal (violence) and ignore the prosperity. They have a vested financial interest for Iraq to go poorly.
I'm reading State of Denial now and it's clear to me that the government is making enough mistakes to bungle the war without any help from the media.
Agreed.
Did the New York Times launch the Tet Offensive? I always thought it was the Viet Cong. We lost a lot of people during those months and it had to be reported. Just because the press reported what happened doesn't make them responsible for the reaction.
I would rather have a press that is sufficiently independent to report bad news about the government and military than to have a state run or state intimidated press. They should err on the side of being critical and independent.
Danny,
It seems that in both of my last two comments you are reading something into my words that I am not saying. I will reiterate exactly what I said in my last comment: the media does not cause events on the ground. Your opening rhetorical question in your last comment seems misplaced, as it is not directed at anything I am saying.
In no way am I making the case that the media causes car bombings, causes suicide bombers, causes helicopters to get shot down, or caused the Tet Offensive. I believe if you go back and read my comments, you will see that I am not making such a claim. If I were making such a claim, your comments would be well-placed, and would be justified. In this case, I stick by everything I said in my comment, and I disagree with your assertion that I am claiming the media causes such events. They do not. What they do have the power to do (again, I am repeating from my last comment) is influence Americans' perception, and therefore influence political decisions.
You are right in saying that bad news should not be ignored. It should not. But the good news is, for the most part, being ignored. Why is that? Isn't such a change (bomb deaths in Baghdad dropping, executions being cut in half, etc.) newsworthy? If, in fact, having more U.S. troops on the ground is having an impact, why is it not being widely discussed in the media? Of course, you know my answer, but it is on this point that we may have to agree to disagree.
As to your last comment, "They should err on the side of being critical and independent", I would agree with part, and disagree with part. They should certainly err on the side of being independent, but they should also err on the side of being intellectually honest, something I argue the so-called "mainstream media" is not.
Of course I understand you didn't mean that. Sorry if I was laying the sarcasm on a bit too thick. My main point is that the events themselves have much more of an impact than the way they are presented. The news can be reported selectively and spun in favor of one idea or another, true. But the actual facts on the ground are 90% of it. When 50,000 Americans had died in Vietnam, people wanted us out. It doesn't matter how much they polish that turd, it's bad news.
I guess I have very high expectations of our nation and our military. When we're still bogged down in a civil war after 4 years, that's bad news to me. I'm sure there are lots of parts of Iraq that aren't violent and have electricity for more than a few hours a day. There were also a lot of cities that weren't smoldering on 2001-9-11, but you didn't hear about them on the liberal media that night.
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