3 ms·

> Was the mainstream media ever objective or impartial? "Objective" or "impartial" were never descriptive - they were aspirational. It's a philosophy that says

> Was the mainstream media ever objective or impartial? "Objective" or "impartial" were never descriptive - they were aspirational. It's a philosophy that says "check your assumptions" and "let the reader draw conclusions." It's this aspiration that appears to be leaving the industry. I recently saw an article in the NY Times. Headline: "Churches Were Eager to Reopen. Now They Are A Major Source of Cases." Body (summarized): 650 cases linked to churches and religious events since the start of the pandemic. I believe this was published on the same day that the US crossed 3,000,000 cases, meaning that this "major source of cases" was linked to 0.022% of all cases. So, why I brought this up. Is there a fully objective way to share this news? Of course not - the very act of publishing an article about church transmission is political - looking for that data was a result of bias. But there clearly was a more objective way to publish it, by changing the title from one that's so obviously bullshit to one that just shares the facts. Edit: it appears that NYT changed the headline 2 days after publishing. DDG search, top result is the old headline, click through and it has a new one: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=churches+were+eager+to+reopen+site%3Anytimes.com&t=h_&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=churches+were+eager+to+reopen+site...

II2II 6y ago
> Is there a fully objective way to share this news? Of course not - the very act of publishing an article about church transmission is political - looking for that data was a result of bias. There are several ways to be objective about it. One is to write an article about the spread of covid in social gatherings, and include church gatherings as part of that piece. Another is to put the data into context, quantitatively. Yet another is to avoid the use of charged words, phrases, or examples. That article was designed to be political, so that is how it ended up. I'm not saying that you could write an article that everyone agreed was apolitical. Heck, if an evidence based article was written about the roundness of the Earth, someone would find a way to politicize it. Yet an article can be written that most people would agree is factual and avoids bias.
amanaplanacanal 6y ago
Headlines are frequently clickbait, unfortunately. You have to read the actual article and then decide hire slanted it is. It’s not uncommon for the article to actually be pretty good and then an editor slapped a bad headline on it.
kqvamxurcagg 6y ago
Thanks for posting this. A couple of years ago I was logging examples of media bias which has become so normalised it's sometimes difficult to put your finger on. I think part of the problem is that journalism used to be a profession with experienced well-paid staff and now isn't. Perhaps journalism needs to be regulated with standards and case studies taught as part of the training.

II2II 6y ago

> Is there a fully objective way to share this news? Of course not - the very act of publishing an article about church transmission is political - looking for that data was a result of bias. There are several ways to be objective about it. One is to write an article about the spread of covid in social gatherings, and include church gatherings as part of that piece. Another is to put the data into context, quantitatively. Yet another is to avoid the use of charged words, phrases, or examples. That article was designed to be political, so that is how it ended up. I'm not saying that you could write an article that everyone agreed was apolitical. Heck, if an evidence based article was written about the roundness of the Earth, someone would find a way to politicize it. Yet an article can be written that most people would agree is factual and avoids bias.

amanaplanacanal 6y ago

Headlines are frequently clickbait, unfortunately. You have to read the actual article and then decide hire slanted it is. It’s not uncommon for the article to actually be pretty good and then an editor slapped a bad headline on it.

kqvamxurcagg 6y ago

Thanks for posting this. A couple of years ago I was logging examples of media bias which has become so normalised it's sometimes difficult to put your finger on. I think part of the problem is that journalism used to be a profession with experienced well-paid staff and now isn't. Perhaps journalism needs to be regulated with standards and case studies taught as part of the training.