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Background Reading & Work

Defining & Understanding News Bias

What is the news?  As Neil Postman and Steve Powers point out in the first selection, “news is more often made than gathered.”  News, in this sense, is biased before words (or images) appear on the page or screen.  What should be included or excluded—what is considered “newsworthy”—is a process of selection.  Why are some events considered important and others not?  Who decides what is newsworthy and on what basis? What role does the medium play? These questions are a good place to get started thinking critically about “the news.”

Media theorist and cultural critic Neil Postman (1931-2003) chaired the Department of Communication Arts at New York University and founded its program in media ecology.  He wrote nineteen books, including the best-selling Amusing Ourselves to Death.  Steve Powers is an award-winning broadcast journalist. Powers earned a Ph.D. from New York University in Postman’s Media Ecology program. The following selections are from How to Watch TV News (1992), which they co-authored and Powers updated (2008) to include some discussion of how cable channels and the Internet have influenced news presentations.

What is the news?

Neil Postman and Steve Powers

When people are asked “What is the news?,” the most frequent answer given is that the news is “what happened that day.”  This is a rather silly answer since even those who give it can easily be made to see that an uncountable number of things happen during the course of a day, including what you had for breakfast, that could hardly be classified as news by any definition.  In modifying their answer, most will add that the news is “important and interesting things that happened that day.”  This helps a little but leaves open the question of what is “important and interesting” and how that is decided.  Embedded somewhere in one’s understanding of the phrase “important and interesting events” is one’s definition of “the news.”

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            What we are driving at is this:”Importance” is a judgment people make.  Of course, there are some events—the assassination of a president, an earthquake, etc.—that have near-universal interest and consequences.  But most news does not inhere in the event.  An event becomes news.  And it becomes news because it is selected for notice out of the buzzing, booming confusion around us.  This may seem a fairly obvious point but keep in mind that many people believe that the news is always “out there,” waiting to be gathered or collected.  In fact, the news is more often made rather than gathered. And it is made on the basis of what the journalist thinks important or what the journalist thinks the audience thinks is important or interesting.  It can get pretty complicated.  Is a story about a killing in Northern Ireland more important than one about a killing in Morocco?  The journalist might not think so, but the audience might.  Which story will become the news?  And once selected, what point of view and details are to be included?  After all, once a journalist has chosen an event to be news, he or she must also choose what is worth seeing, what is worth neglecting, and what is worth remembering or forgetting.  This is simply another way of saying that every news story is a reflection of the reporter who tells the story.  The reporter’s previous assumptions about what is “out there” edit what he or she thinks is there. 

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            What we are saying is that to answer the question “What is news?” a viewer [or reader or listener] must know something about the political beliefs and economic situation of those who provide the news.  The viewer is then in a position to know why certain events are considered important by those in charge…and may compare those judgments with his or her own.

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In this next selection, Postman and Powers stress the distinction between actual events and representations of events and the role language plays.  They offer three principles to keep in mind when reading the news. 

Understanding the Bias of Language: Three Principles

Neil Postman & Steve Powers

There is a difference between the world of events and the world of words about events.

Principle One: Whatever anyone says something is, it isn’t. The job of an honest reporter is to find words, and the appropriate tone in presenting them, that will come as close to evoking the event as possible.  But since no two people will use exactly the same words to describe an event, we must acknowledge that for every verbal description of an event, there are multiple possible alternatives (102).

Principle Two: Language operates at various levels of abstraction.  This means that there is a level of language whose purpose is to describe an event.  There is also a level of language whose purpose is to evaluate an event.  Even more, there is a level of language whose purpose is to infer what is unknown on the basis of what is known.  The usual way to make these distinctions clear is through sentences such as the following three:

            Manny Freebus is five foot eight and weighs 235 pounds.

            Manny Freebus is grossly fat.

            Manny Freebus eats too much.

The first sentence may be said to be language as pure description.  It involves no judgments and no inferences.  The second sentence is a description of sorts, but is mainly a judgment that the speaker makes of the ‘event’ known as Manny Freebus.  The third sentence is an inference based on observations the speaker has made….As it happens, we know Manny Freebus and can tell you that he eats no more than the average person but suffers from a glandular condition that keeps him overweight.  Therefore, anyone who concluded from observing Manny’s shape that he eats too much has made a false inference.  A good guess, but false nonetheless. (103)

Principle Three: Almost all words have connotative meanings. This suggests that even when attempting to use purely descriptive language, a journalist cannot avoid expressing an attitude about what he or she is saying.  For example, here is the opening sentence of an anchor’s report about national examinations: “For the first time in the nation’s history, high-level education policymakers have designed the elements for a national examination system similar to the one advocated by President…”  This sentence certainly looks like it is pure description, although it is filled with ambiguities.  Is this the first time in our history that this has been done?  Or only the first time that high-level education policymakers have done it?  Or is it the first time something has been designed that is similar to what the president has advocated?  But let us put those questions aside.  (After all, there are limits to how analytical one ought to be.)  Instead, we might concentrate on such words as “high-level,” “policymakers,” and “designed.”  Speaking for ourselves, we are by no means sure that we know what a “high-level policymaker” is, although it sounds awfully impressive.  It is certainly better than a low-level policymaker, although how one would distinguish between the two is a bit of a mystery.  Come to think of it, a low-level policymaker must be pretty good, too, since anyone who makes policy must be important.  It comes as no surprise, therefore, that what was done was “designed.”  To design something usually implies careful thought, preparation, organization, and coherence.  People design buildings, bridges, and furniture.  If your experience has been anything like ours, you will know that reports are almost never designed; they are usually “thrown together,” and it is quite a compliment to say that a report was designed.  The journalist who paid this compliment was certainly entitled to do it, even though he may not have been aware of what he was doing.  He probably thought he had made a simple description, avoiding any words that would imply favor or disfavor.  But if so, he was defeated in his effort because language tends to be emotion laden.  Because it is people who do the talking, the talk almost always includes a feeling, an attitude, a judgment.  In a sense, every language contains the history of a people’s feelings about the world.  Our words are baskets of emotion.  Smart journalists, of course, know this.  And so do smart audiences.  Smart audiences don’t blame anyone for this state of affairs.  They are, however, prepared for it. (104-105)

QuickWriting & Networking

(1) Select an event to attend as a classroom community.  The event could be an activity outside class or during class.  The class could also divide into small groups of three to five, and each group could attend a different event.  The event could be watching something together, going to the same meeting (perhaps of some campus group), or even eating a meal together. 

(2) Write a brief (two-paragraph) description of the event that you attended with at least two other people.

(3) Compare descriptions.  What did you learn?

We Report.              Fairness & Accuracy           THE WEEK                  “All the News

You Decide.            In Reporting                       All You Need to Know            That’s Fit to Print”

FOXNews logo         Media watch group            About Everything That Matters             New York Times logo

 Detecting News Bias: Some Analytical Tools

To become an “active” reader of the news, you need to adopt a questioning attitude toward the content of any news report and you also need to develop your analytical abilities.  What should you consider when analyzing different reports or representations of the “same” news event, which you will be asked to do for this project?  What should you look for?   To help you detect news bias, you can begin by looking critically through the following lenses:

(1) inclusion/exclusion of information;

(2) word choices; and

(3) selection and use of sources.

(1) Inclusion/Exclusion of Information

What information has the reporter chosen to include or exclude? How does the inclusion or exclusion of background information and context alter your perception?

When you read a news report critically, consider what information the writer has chosen to include or exclude.  Remember, as Postman and Powers pointed out, a reporter is re-presenting an event and there are multiple ways to do so.

            Consider the following line from a news report:

            Witnesses watched in disbelief as the woman ran over her husband repeatedly -- perhaps as many as five times. Associated Press, Feb. 13, 2003 

How does the reporter’s emphasis change with the inclusion of the word repeatedly and addition of “perhaps as many as five times”?

            Another tragedy reported in the news was the death of an 18-year-old student who died from water intoxication after being forced to drink a large quantity of water his last day of pledging a fraternity.  Learning this much as a reader, how do you react?  Who do you feel is responsible for this loss of life?  Now consider the event given more information: the pledge had not slept in four days, alcohol was involved, and he was not liked by the brothers who were hazing him that night.  Has your perception of the event changed?  News reports tend to be brief; they often do not (perhaps cannot) provide the full context for an event.  When reading the news, consider how the inclusion of facts or background information might alter your perception.  Also consider whether the reporter includes details that might affect your interpretation or “reading” without really adding any more information about the event.

(2) Word Choices

How do word choices affect your reading of a news report of an event?

            All words have both an explicit meaning—a denotation (like those explained in the dictionary)—and emotional overtones or associations—a connotation. The emotional associations can be positive, negative, or somewhere in between.  As Postman and Powers point out, “language tends to be emotion laden.”  In reading the words, in a sense, we read worlds, or, as they put it, “the history of a people’s feelings about the world.”

      As a reader of the news, consider not only the emotional associations carried by the vocabulary chosen but also the subtle shadings of the language used to describe people and events. Say a woman is described as “slender.” How might substituting a synonym affect your impression?  What if, instead of describing her as “slender,” the writer decided to describe her as “skinny” or “anorexic”? How would these changes affect you as a reader?   What difference does it make if a person is described as “quiet” rather than “intensely shy” or a neighborhood is described as “gritty” instead of “run down”?

            The word “bias” itself has a negative connotation, even though everyone is biased in the sense that we all see selectively.  No one, however, wants to be called “biased.”  Bias is a loaded word because it is often associated with discrimination against people of a different race, ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, or even size.

QuickWriting & Networking

List words, images, or ideas that you associate with the word gang. What comes to mind?  Then write quickly for five minutes, trying not to censor yourself.  (For more about QuickWriting, see pp. 0-00.)

Join a small group to share your associations with the word “gang.”  Report back to the whole class. 

Options

1. Find a newspaper headline or article that includes the word “gang.”  (Try googling* these key words: “gang-related news articles.”)  How is “gang” being used in the article you selected?  In a small group, compare the use of this word in several newspaper articles.  Does the word “gang” have the same meaning? 

2. Look up some dictionary definitions of “gang.”  How else might “gang” be used, in conversation for example? Discuss denotation/connotation as a whole class.

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* “Googling” is a verb, meaning to search for information with a search engine, not necessarily Google, on the World Wide Web.                                         http://merriam-webster.com

(3) Selection and Use of Sources

Where does the news get its news?  How does information reach reporters?  What are their sources of news? Are the sources reliable?  Is the information accurate? Did the reporter use more than one source?  Were more sources necessary for a fuller understanding?  If multiple sources were used, were they affiliated (closely associated) or unaffiliated? So many questions, important questions to consider when critically evaluating news reports of an event.

            In an effort to be as objective as possible, some reporters try to choose neutral language, language that does not elicit an emotional response.  Phrases like “according to authorities” or “a spokesperson said” give readers the impression that the reporter is merely a conduit for information.  Consider the writer’s use of attributions in the opening line from an article on page 1 of the New York Times (Feb. 14, 2003):

The government raised the national threat level last week after American intelligence obtained evidence that agents of Al Qaeda might be positioning themselves to carry out two major attacks, including one inside the United States, government officials said today.

The reporter’s tone is informed, detached, and authoritative.  The vocabulary used is studiedly neutral—the writer avoids words that evoke an emotional reaction from the reader. The attribution of the assertion about Al Qaeda to unnamed government officials is vague but also lends the report authority, and the reporter disappears behind this authoritative source.

                Now consider the opening line of a report of a very different kind of news event that appeared on the same front page:

            One after the other, 42 snowboarders launched themselves off the shoulder of Mount Shuksan in a silent salute to a fallen pioneer of their sport, Craig Kelly, 36, who was killed in an avalanche last month.

Nothing legitimizes the news like an eye witness report.  Since the reporter does not attribute the information in the story to a source, the reader must assume that the writer was actually on the mountain observing the snowboarders, although it is unlikely he was that close to the event. The reporter, too, has chosen connotative language—“launched,” “fallen pioneer”—to describe the event and the reason for it.  While this sentence is as informative as that about the national threat level, the reporter’s tone here is less detached, much more engaged, and thus overtly subjective. 

            Including statements from “experts” (scientists, analysts, academics, for example) is another way reporters try to lend a sense of authority to a report.  While this makes good sense, there are some potential problems: Is the “expert” really an expert?  What kind of expert?  How expert?  Is the word “scientist” (or whatever label) accurate?  Sometimes these labels are used too loosely.  As a critical reader of the news, you need to learn when to question or at least learn more about the background (and bias) of a source. 

            If you want to learn more about probable causes of climate change, for example, and you would like to know the extent the variability of the earth’s orbit is a factor in temperature fluctuations, an expert identified as an energy chemist affiliated with a major university or a senior scientist in the Earth Sciences Division of well-known laboratory would seem reliable sources.  However, even when the kind of expertise is clearly labeled and deemed appropriate to the issue at hand, affiliations are not always clear.

            If a “breaking news” headline reads “E. Coli Outbreak,” you can probably safely assume this is a fact.  If, however, you come across the headline “Organic Farming Increases Chances of E-coli Infection,” as an active reader-consumer of the news, you should at least be able to distinguish it as a claim rather than a fact, and ideally you would check out who is making this claim and whether they have a special interest in consumers staying away from organic produce.  A quick search may reveal that the source is an agricultural or food analyst.  A closer look, however, may reveal that the source’s use of statistics is dubious and the institute with which this source is affiliated is funded by many firms whose products are excluded from organic agriculture.  The source may become even more questionable if quoted in a newsletter published by the corporation Monsanto, a leading producer of genetically-engineered seed and the herbicide marketed as “Roundup.” 

            Even when affiliations are clear, assumptions may prove faulty, as in this case, at least as revealed in a report of an examination by the New York Times.  When the Bush administration’s wartime performance in Iraq started to be viewed more unfavorably in the press and opinion polls, a number of retired military officers appeared on television and radio programs to offer their analysis.  Times reporter David Barstow explains:

To the public, these men [were] members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world. Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, [was] a Pentagon information apparatus that used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance.  While the New York Times examination, according to this report, revealed that these sources were not speaking independently, a closer look also showed that economic interests likely led to their biased assessments as well: “Most of the analysts [had] ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.”  These business relationships were hardly ever exposed to viewers or news networks, according to this investigative report which shows in some detail how these analysts may have been used to frame the interpretation of events during this post-9/11 period.  The problem was exacerbated by the influence of corporate media owners.  (To read the full report, see “Message Machine: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand,” David Barstow, New York Times, April 20, 2008).  The Defense Department denied any wrongdoing: “The office of the Defense Department’s inspector general said in a report that it had found no wrongdoing in a Pentagon public relations program that made use of retired officers who worked as military analysts for television and radio networks.” (To read this report, see “Inspector General Sees No Misdeeds in Pentagon’s Effort to Make Use of TV Analysts,” David Barstow, New York Times, January 17, 2009.)  Sometimes even seemingly trustworthy sources need to be called into question, especially when economics and politics are involved.  All of these influences make reading the news more challenging.

            Some news sources, especially in investigative reporting, understandably  do not want to be identified as in this scenario:

            ‘Sometimes the only way to get a story is to promise confidentiality,’ says Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press advocacy group. Ms. Dalglish, a former reporter in Minnesota, remembers relying on anonymous sources to expose the illegal dumping of toxic waste in a pond. ‘Those folks were never going to come forth and admit to doing what they did if I identified them,’ she says. ‘They were afraid they'd be arrested, intimidated or sued. The important thing is that the place got cleaned up.’            “Unnamed Sources: Essential or Overused?” Randy Dotinga, Christian Science Monitor, August 12, 2004:  http:// www.csmonitor.com/2004/0812/p03s01-usju.html

The Watergate scandal that led to the downfall of President Nixon was in part exposed by information revealed to Washington Post investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein from an anonymous source only recently identified.  While the use—and perhaps overuse—of unnamed sources has declined in recent years, there will always be cases where the use of undisclosed sources will be the only way to get important information. 

            What gets covered or uncovered in a news report is determined by a variety of influences, not all of which are in a reporter’s control. Why were particular sources selected?  Who is being quoted? Were sources selected because they represent the reporter’s or editor’s bias or the bias of some institution?  Do the sources have their own motivations for providing information? The selection and use of sources is biased no matter how “objective” a reporter tries to be. 

            Bias can be woven into an article while giving the appearance of being objective.  For example, in his news report “A New Middle Stance Emerges in Debate over Climate” (New York Times, January 1, 2007), Andrew Revkin includes statements from some scientists who were not included, at least collectively, in the public debate about climate change at the time.  (This article is reprinted in “Reading the Environment,” pp. 0-00.)  What Revkin did in his news report was to make visible their voices and name it “a new middle stance”---that was the news event he composed.  The word “new” was added to the original news headline.  While this middle stance was not “new” to scientists, it was “new” to the public and therefore an appropriate word choice.

                After offering readers some background in brief, Revkin then drew on “experts” who espoused a “third stance”—a middle stance between the “alarmists” and “skeptics.”  What experts did Revkin insert between the polar extremes?  What experts did he include and quote to support his claim?

to President Obama]

Revkin identifies their expertise as well as their institutional affiliations and uses these quoted sources not only to support the claim that he makes but also, one could argue, to interrupt the either-or public debate about climate change going on at the time and make a contribution.  “These experts,” writes Revkin, see a clear need for the public to engage now, but not to panic.” 

            Andrew Revkin is an award-winning environmental reporter who has covered climate change and climate politics for the New York Times since 1995.  In Dot Earth, a blog about climate change, the environment, and sustainability published on the New York Times website, Revkin examines efforts to balance human affairs with the planet’s limits.  He has also written several books.  A brief look at his background reveals that his credentials are good and certainly appropriate.  A closer look indicates that he probably leans more toward “alarmist” in his view about climate change.  Revkin perhaps chose in this report to try to move the debate to some middle ground where conversation could take place. 

            Readers of the news are biased, too.  Whatever news report you read, you will respond from your own location (background, knowledge, political stance, and more).

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