jb177314@ohio.edu
The lecture by John McManus, author and media critic from the San Francisco Bay Area, talked about how the changes in our news media are affecting democracy. During this lecture, he discussed why seeking the truth is essential in a democracy, and how to determine what is trustworthy and what is not in this digital age. His lecture focused primarily on the concept of bias and where biases come from. He talked about how we can recognize where our own biases come from, and how to recognize societal fault lines that create this bias.
McManus describes these societal fault lines as a concept borrowed from journalist Robert Maynard, and how we interpret the world is powerfully influenced by where we are situated along five specific societal fault lines. The five main societal fault lines include race, class, geography, gender, and generation. To help reduce bias, we must recognize how our personal societal fault lines affect us. Our biases can be very hard to see, let alone diminish, therefore it is of the utmost importance to recognize our fault lines and seek out new perspectives.
Examining Fault Lines in a Time of Political Earthquakes
The same concept can also be applied in a corporate sense, meaning that all corporations have their very own fault lines as well. This can be a tough issue to address when considering all that is at stake for a corporation, especially a news corporation. The news industry is shaped by four different markets; the market for investors/owners, the market for advertising dollars, the market for sources of news, and the market for consumers/subscribers/audience.
McManus gave an example of when a newspaper that he was involved with, published an article about how to get the best deal when buying a car. This article was very useful for the general public, as the negotiation process for buying a car can be quite daunting for most people. However, after the article was published, many of the local car dealerships that advertise with this newspaper were outraged by this article and pulled their advertising from the paper, costing the newspaper over $10,000 a month. After a while, the newspaper was forced to reconcile with these dealerships as they accounted for such a large portion of their advertising income. This was quite an ethical problem for the company as well as McManus, which led him to explain that if your ethical values do not align with those of the company you work for, sometimes the best thing to do is to walk away.
This was a prime example of how corporations can manifest bias in our news media. He goes on to relate this to our own biases, and how cognitive dissonance can hinder ethical decision making. Cognitive dissonance is when conflicting ideals or beliefs create distress, which then leads to an alteration of one of those ideals or beliefs to restore balance. McManus talked about he is both a Catholic and a believer in pro-choice, even though the two ideals heavily conflict. He says it would be much easier for him just to pick a side, however that is the type of thinking that encourages bias.
McManus explained that for news corporations, the best methods to reduce bias include recognizing one’s own biases, seeking diversity in staff and sourcing, organizing with other journalists to counterbalance institutional bias, and seeking allies in the community. We too must practice these types of methods to reduce our own personal biases as well. All of this relates back to the central journalistic goal of objectivity. Achieving the greatest level of objectivity is what will help produce the greatest level of truth.
Courtesy of: Imgur
No comments:
Post a Comment