Biases of US Media: An Overview

This article discusses the biases of US media and presents two examples of biased reporting. It also highlights the importance of unbiased reporting and the impact of special interest messages on the society. The article follows the code of journalism and does not blame any media house for being biased. It provides a critical analysis of the writing style and spin of facts in the two examples presented. The bibliography includes relevant books on media bias and perspective.

Running Head: BIASES OF US MEDIA AN OVERVIEW
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Running Head: BIASES OF US MEDIA AN OVERVIEW
Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Example One..........................................................................................................................3
Example 2...............................................................................................................................5
Bibliography...............................................................................................................................7
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Running Head: BIASES OF US MEDIA AN OVERVIEW
Introduction
The abbreviation of the term NEWS states that it is North, East, West, and South. This
abbreviation is true for the media houses that go for unbiased reporting (Kuypers). The biased
media houses cover the news in accordance with the special interest messages promoted by
their funders or the supporters (Hemmer). In the active history of US media reporting, we
have many such examples. However, nobody can take an action against these media houses
because they use the "hedges while promoting such messages." Many the media houses that
are biased in nature often run a campaign of special interest messages with an intention to
brainwash the freewill thinking of the society (Atkins). They try to rob the "sense of
judgment" by unduly amplifying certain news pieces and presenting an alternative viewpoint
of the truth. However, there are some extreme cases where even a layman can identify that it
is biased reporting. In the current assignment, we are presenting some of these biased pieces
of reporting that not only levels media houses as the unofficial spokesperson of a political
party or a thought process and establish them as the houses moving ahead with vested
interests (Falks).
With due respect to the power and code of the print medium, under the guidelines of the
"code of the journalism," we will not blame or name any media house for being a pro with
liberals or anti with conservatives (Davenport). There is no denial of the fact that such type of
reporting exists. In order to prove our statement true we are presenting two examples. They
seem like a special interest message floated by certain groups that deal in the business of
"special interest messages (Thomas).”
Example One
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Running Head: BIASES OF US MEDIA AN OVERVIEW
(n.d.).
Millbank, Dana. "Donald Trump is a bigot and a racist." Washington Post (2015):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-is-a-bigot-and-a-racist/
2015/12/01/a2a47b96-9872-11e5-8917-653b65c809eb_story.html?
noredirect=on&utm_term=.e5463b29d4e6.
noyes/2018/05/08/media-get-trumped-presidents-polls-improve-despite-90-negative.
This article was published in the Washington Post the title of this article was “Donald Trump
is a bigot and a racist." It is a general practice that in order to catch the attention of the
readers sometimes they try to come up with direct headings like these, however, they never
forget to put a question mark as a hedge in the article. In case it is not a biased article then the
headling of this article should look like this "Donald Trump is a bigot and a racist?”
The initial few paragraphs of this article give us a one-sided account of all the statements that
Mr. Trump has made. This article conceals the second part of the state where he balanced his
opinion about certain issues. This article used the technique of spin and selective view on the
events in order to support the allegation that it made. In the last few paragraphs, the authors
did try to control the damage, however, with the help of some lame arguments. Let's have a
look at this statement made by the writer.
Though all Trump supporters surely aren’t racists or bigots, even a cursory examination of
social media reveals that many are (Millbank).
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Running Head: BIASES OF US MEDIA AN OVERVIEW
Check this statement once again, what point the author is trying to make, why he cannot say
that President Trump has some support from the side of liberals and followers of other
schools of the thought. The author intentionally tweaked the sentence in the favor of his
argument. When we see the concluding part of the sentence and if we are scanning the article
instead of reading it then on a prima facie level it looks as if all the supporters of President
Trump are racist. This is an example of crony journalism as well. The author is prejudiced
about certain facts and he is not ready to examine them with free will. Let’s have a look at the
concluding lines of the article
“I argued that the large number of instances over an extended period add up to a pattern of
bigotry.
“We’d be at it a long time if we go back through history,” the host said.
Exactly. Shouldn’t Republicans take that time before they nominate a racist? (Millbank)”
Here we can see three independent open-ended sentences. The first sentence is not a
conclusion it is only an argument. However, the heading of the article depicts a strong result,
not even an opinion. The last line of the article raises a question connected to the selection of
a racist. It is true that they should not. The logical meaning says that since the author is in the
state of ambiguity about the status of Mr. Donald Trump as a racist, the question, in the end,
has no relevance to Mr. Trump, however, someone scanning through the article can have this
impression that the selection of Donald Trump by the liberals is a wrong choice.
Example 2
Noyes, Rick. "The Media Get Trumped: President’s Polls Improve Despite 90% Negative
Coverage." MRC News Busters (2018): https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-
noyes/2018/05/08/media-get-trumped-presidents-polls-improve-despite-90-negative.
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Running Head: BIASES OF US MEDIA AN OVERVIEW
MRC News Busters is a page that claims to bring out the true picture behind the news
reporting, an article published on this page tries to clear the air about President Donald
Trump where it says that in spite of all the negative publicity the popularity graph of the
Donald Trump has increased. Such exact quantification of the news content is impossible
unless we are doing a survey on the Lickert scale. Let’s check a piece of information that this
article presents.
Nearly two-fifths (39%) of the TV coverage we examined focused on Trump scandals and
controversies, while 45 percent was devoted to various policy issues (Noyes).
Just think about this statement once again, 39 percent of the airtime was devoted to
examining the scandals associated with Trump. This statement never gives an idea about the
verdict of the examinations. If the verdicts are not clear then how can be read this information
under the title "The Media Get Trumped: President’s Polls Improve Despite 90% Negative
Coverage". Once again the author is trying to play corny by putting misleading headlines. It
is very unfortunate that art and habit of " reading between the lines" and questioning the
authority of the authors are diminishing. Just like the fast food, US citizens want their news to
be delivered on a hot platter and the people behind the media booms are taking full advantage
of this mental state of the readers.
The history of US journalism is full of examples when media houses blindly supported
political parties and the thought process of conservatism and the school of liberal thought
processing. While writing this article we are bounded by the code of the journalism. This
code says that we cannot play a blame game unless we have enough proofs to level the
charges as the ultimate piece of the truth.
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Running Head: BIASES OF US MEDIA AN OVERVIEW
In the current compilation, we presented two articles. We are judging them on the merit of
the biases that are present in the writing style or the spin of the facts. They are individual
cases and we can never claim that certain media houses are completely biased towards any
particular school of thoughts. It will be unwise to blame a media house for following any
particular set of thought process.
We cannot claim that they are following any clear pattern to support conservatism or liberals
directly. However, it seems that sometimes they come up with special interest messages to
serve certain occasions. Sometimes these media houses try to build or break a sentiment with
the help of false or prejudiced reporting. Unlike many irresponsible media reports, in the
current compilation, I will not play a blame game. However, I will always say that I have
some suspicions connected to the intentions behind some of the media reports that they were
special interest messages.
Bibliography
(n.d.).
Atkins, Larry. Skewed: A Critical Thinker's Guide to Media Bias. New York: Prometheus
Books, 2016.
Davenport, Christian. Media Bias, Perspective, and State Repression: The Black Panther
Party. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Falks, Erica. Women for President: Media Bias in Nine Campaigns. Illinois: University of
Illinois Press, 2010.
Hemmer, Nicole. Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of.
Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Press, 2016.
Kuypers, Jim A. Partisan Journalism: A History of Media Bias in the United States. Lanham:
Rowman and Littlefield, 2013.
Millbank, Dana. "Donald Trump is a bigot and a racist." Washington Post (2015):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-is-a-bigot-and-a-racist/
2015/12/01/a2a47b96-9872-11e5-8917-653b65c809eb_story.html?
noredirect=on&utm_term=.e5463b29d4e6.
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Running Head: BIASES OF US MEDIA AN OVERVIEW
Noyes, Rick. "The Media Get Trumped: President’s Polls Improve Despite 90% Negative
Coverage." MRC News Busters (2018): https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-
noyes/2018/05/08/media-get-trumped-presidents-polls-improve-despite-90-negative.
Thomas, Cal. What Works: Common Sense Solutions for a Stronger America. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 2014.
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