Jenna Hill
jh875318@ohio.edu
In general, the world of journalism and the people within it are thought to have liberal-leaning views. Does this include the companies and news organizations as well? Also, we ask if the content we consume is filled with biases.
As previously discussed, news today is often considered fake news and seen untrustworthy. Many consumers of news information lack trust between what they are reading as well as the source they retain this information from. Specifically, in political news, bias, unfortunately, slips between the factual content.
In a survey completed by the Knight Foundation and Gallup, it was found that Americans believe 62% of news is biased. Of this percentage, 80% are angered or disturbed when bias information is found. Within finding biases, there is a difference in the believed level of bias between political parties. Again, from the survey, those who lean Democratic believed only 44% of news was biased. Meanwhile, those who lean Republican believed 77% is bias.
Following the survey conducted to determine bias, participants ranked news organizations on their bias level. There were a decent amount of differences between rankings from the two political parties. The average rank was found from the net percentage of both parties. Overall, from the net percentage, PBS News and the Associated Press were found to be the most unbiased. On the other hand, Fox News and Breibart News were viewed as most bias.
Similarly, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey to scale news sources and their political views. The survey shows several news sources' ranking of bias and trustworthiness based on the political party. It shows organizations such as Fox News and Breitbart attract a more conservative leaning audience. On the other hand, those who lean liberal consume information from their more trusted sources of CNN and NBC News.
Overall, these studies show the divide between political parties as well as between consumers and news sources. Although being completely unbiased is almost impossible, it is the job of journalists to limit these biases. This should be specifically looked into when publishing political content. Limiting bias will help lessen the influence on a political stance or idea. As news often influences consumers to take action, political news needs to be more trustworthy and factual. Consider using multiple sources with different views before making a political stance to limit your personal bias! If both news sources and viewers work to limit bias and consider difference views, a lesser divide will eventually rise.
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