A Simple Lesson in Bias

I like simple, obvious lessons. They get the point across better sometimes than compare and contrast because peoples' innate preferences can sometimes get in the way. Parables worked for the Church for almost 2000 years, so there must be something to it.

Let's say you're the PR director of a large corporation. There are corporate officers you like and whose direction for the company you admire and corporate officers who you don't get along with and who seem to want to take the company in a direction you think is pretty retarded. Most of your friends are in the first group and only a few are in the second, those mostly ones whose commitment to that "opposite" policy is weak.

There's a scandal. Certain company officers from the group you don't like appear to have acted improperly and might have taken bribes in the form of gifts and money to do so. The only problem is, there's evidence that your friends might have done the same thing. In fact, as a PR officer, the longer you look into it, the evidence just gets worse for your friends.

However, they are still your friends and you don't want to let them have it as much as you should. You've been spinning the PR to implicate primarily the group you dislike and don't agree with. It only makes sense that they're guilty because you knew they were taking the company in the wrong direction anyway. This just helps you prove it. But how to rectify your friends' involvement. You decide to downplay most of it and ignore the rest.

Why do you do this? Well, they're your friends for one and overall if they keep the company going in the direction you wanted, what's a little misconduct? You are now the mainstream media.

Does the object lesson seem to be a bit in-your-face and obvious? Have you read this thinking "duh, rather obvious there, don't have to beat me over the head with it"? You should have. In fact, most Americans should, but personal preference and even prejudice often prevents that very thing. When, for example, the media creates hours of TV and phone books worth of stories on the Abramoff scandal, even promoting people like Harry Reid's attacks against them for his own political advantage, that's one thing. But when they ignore his involvement or at the very least downplay it, then they are guilty by association. Their bias not only hurts their credibility, but it also puts them at risk of violating the whole alleged purpose of their job, to objectively provide the public with news. It makes everything they say suspect and removes them from a position of trust with those they allege to support...we the American people.

Seriously want to know about Media Bias? Then start with this primer, Bernie Goldberg's Bias. Move on to Arrogance. Then you've got the basics. The Left often tells you the two greatest words you can ever take from one of their "lessons" is "Question Authority". What they usually omit, but what you should take away from this at the very least, is that the Authority you question shouldn't just be your President, your Congressman or your legislator. It should also be your news anchor, newspaper, news mag, oh, and the Leftist who told you to Question Authority after he spouted off his own agenda. Everybody's got a bias and everybody's got an agenda. You have one, I have one, and the liberal crusader journalist sitting there righting about evil Republicans and saintly Democrats (and not writing at all about Libertarians) most certainly has one.

Is there a source of unbiased, uncorrupted news? I don't think there actually is, because news, like history is written by people and people are not only biased, sometimes they're quite good at lieing or at least omitting the truth. Your best bet, and I've said this before, is to educate yourself. Learn people's biases and use it to filter out what likely is the best and most truthful of what you see and read. That's just critical thinking and the best you can do. Two places dedicated to looking at the media's bias from the right and left and good places to start the "filter" process are Newsbusters and Media Matters. Media Matters tends to be a left-leaning reaction to Newsbusters more often than not, but hey I wanted to provide you with both sides to start. It's also harder to read based on the site layout at times, but hey. See, there's bias everywhere.

Will you always get the truth this way? Will you not be deceived? Actually, you still probably will be occasionally, but being spoon fed the occasional piece of crap is far preferable to having it shoveled in daily with a bulldozer.