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Every human being has opinions, a world view, attitudes about what it means to be fair, civil, respectful, what makes a good program, grounding in a particular
by wfo 11y ago
Every human being has opinions, a world view, attitudes about what it means to be fair, civil, respectful, what makes a good program, grounding in a particular culture, socioeconomic class, etc.
Anytime you get your news from a human being or group of human beings it is going to be "biased". If you want to avoid it entirely (not a goal I think is reasonable, feasible, or even attractive), the Associated Press generally just describes facts so your "bias" there is confined mostly to the facts they choose to describe (incidentally, the most impactful and insidious form of bias -- is this story about the police shooting someone news? Not if you don't think it's part of an ongoing pattern and story about police violence racism and abuse of power).
But I think if you switch to fact-stating-only news sources I think you will walk away far less informed. It's a personal opinion of course but I'd much rather hear from a human (and therefore "biased", whatever that means) expert who does a thorough analysis and tries to explain the issues in the cleanest and most deep way possible, including subtext, context, and every other relevant text as he or she sees them.
- Karunamon 11y agoI think when most people say "unbiased", they don't mean the dictionary definition which is, as you say, unattainable, but they instead mean "without pushing a political agenda". The best anyone can hope for is a diverse enough staff (with all definitions of "diverse", not just the popular ones nowadays) so that enough people get input on what stories are coming out that the broadcast isn't the result of one or two people's opinions.
- dublinben 11y agoThe problem is that delivering the news "without pushing a political agenda" is just a status quo bias. Every news source is inherently biased, so it is important to recognize this and react accordingly.
- Karunamon 11y agojust a status quo bias. What does this even mean?
- dublinben 11y agoBy "just status quo bias," I mean that it is just another form of bias. In this case, towards the status quo.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias
- Karunamon 11y ago...I mean how and why? Reporting on the news as it is without trying to influence it is not necessarily a bias. Otherwise, that word no longer has any meaning.
- dublinben 11y agoLook above at the slavery example. Every news story inherits the bias of the people responsible for it. Even the choice of stories to cover is a significant source of bias.