Bias in Media

Will Heflinger

wh617717@ohio.edu 

Image via Table Hopper

Many people have trouble believing what is reported in the news. One station may report on one side of a story, while another station may report on something else within the same story. While both stations may be reporting the facts, the station or website's bias may skew some viewers' perspectives on certain news stories.

Media bias has become such a common practice that AllSides has created a media bias chart to help viewers find the right news station that matches their political preference. It displays all types of online news stations from the left side of the political spectrum to the right. The problem that happens when something like this exists is that when people are aligning with one particular newscast, they may not get every detail on a news story.

Not only will viewers not understand the entirety of a story, they might be biased and only believe what is on their preferred news station. This is one of the reasons "fake news" is such a prevalent problem with news today. If someone believes that their news station is always correct and no other station is, then they may be able to convince others to not pay attention to all of the reports on a story.

Being able to trust someone's preferred news source is starting to become a problem as well. According to Pew Research Center's recent study, people who identify as Democrat's trust in national news organizations has dropped from 83% to 78% since 2016, and Republican's trust has dropped from 70% to 35%. This kind of decrease in trust is concerning because people will no longer trust news sources, even if what is being reported is completely true.

One way to prevent something like this from happening is to report without any bias at all. The only ethical way to report is to report from every angle of the story, and not from only one side. People have the right to know what happened in a news story, and it is journalist's responsibility to correctly report on these stories. 

For example, bias can be made from talking about the race of a criminal in a story. By reporting on the race of the suspect, it can reinforce bad stereotypes, which is extremely unethical. Reporters should only report on the facts of a case and remove any kind of opinion that can skew the viewer's perspective on a situation.

When every reporter and news station can do this, people will begin to start trusting news sources again.