Media Bias Affecting Personal Beliefs

 Madison Kopp 

mk193818@ohio.edu

Image from Adfontesmedia.com

Every news organization and media outlet has a certain bias to them that makes readers have feelings of untrust or fake news. Certain outlets may say things to often want to influence you to think the way they think on topics. But, they should just be trying to inform you on the things and events going on in the world. We all know that most media outlets and new organizations have their own political bias. These biases include left, center and right and we all have our own news organizations that we trust. 

This chart above is known as the Media Bias Chart. The Media Bias Chart is used to display where most media outlets lie visually on a political spectrum. The chart also tells us their certain news values and reliability on truthful information. Some of these include fact reporting, opinion, variation in reliability, and unfair persuasion amongst a few others. 

Many people may look at this chart to get an understanding of what outlets or organizations they would find most fitting for them by looking at their news values. With hundreds of outlets, people may get concerned with who is untrustworthy or who they find the most biased. According to a 2020 study done by Pew Research Center, found that CNN is trusted by 70% of liberal Democrats, but only 16% of Republicans and Fox News is trusted by 75% Republican and only 12% of Democrats.  It was also shown that Fox News, 43% of adults trust it for political news while 40% distrust it. 

While this topic of media bias may seem not important, it is very real and all readers and journalists should be aware of bias in the media. This is especially important when you are looking for information regarding a political figure and also just all news in general. Social media is also a growing outlet in itself. Television media may be biased but don't forget about social media bias as well. Before you retweet something or comment on a topic that is important to you, be sure to do your background research on the topic before you hit send. It is an important concept for journalists to remember as well, before going on to produce a story on a political or any topic in general, you should be researching and trying to understand everything there is to know on that person or topic. Not everything you hear or read is true and that it is the most important thing to remember.