
Our world today revolves around information. The transfer of information is a constant occurrence that surrounds us in everything that we do. Information and media are seemingly always encroaching more and more on our lives and are more prominent than ever, but in some ways this is damaging to our society. Media has warped into a massive corrupt battle for the title of the top program, but what effect does this have on us as viewers?

The endless competition between media outlets has caused the information we receive to be increasingly corrupted by opinions, politics, money, and countless other factors that should not affect the root of what media is. Media should essentially be a transferring of information so we as a society can benefit from the knowledge. But, somewhere along the line we went wrong.

With media becoming such a critical part of our lives we need to look analytically at the endless information we receive every day. There are constant patterns of bias and dishonesty that plague our information so much so that it is often hard to decipher what is right and what is an attempt at swaying opinion. 

In the past decade or so, media has become scrutinized more and more. According to a Gallup poll conducting in 2015, only 40% of the general population actually trusts mass media. This is down 15% since 1999 which speaks volumes on public perception of media. The American population simply does not believe what they see in the press anymore. This is staggering and actually a huge issue. But is mass media really this dishonest?  Or is it just the perception of media that has changed. 

I would like to analyze all forms of media bias, from any part of the political spectrum, and learn to look at media with a critical lens. We must learn to criticize and diversify the information that we receive so we can gain unbiased and indifferent knowledge on topics. And to do this, we must look at the root of what media should be, try to figure out what went wrong, and change the status quo. 

The term “liberal bias” is often thrown around very loosely regarding media, but what is the actual implication of this term? In many ways liberal bias is a real phenomenon in media. In a survey of media correspondents only 7% identified as Republicans, while nearly 30% identify as democrats. But, it is very important to recognize that bias is not limited to one side of the political spectrum. 

The best way to understand how media has developed to the state that it is in today is to look back to the 1960’s and 70’s when media was becoming more and more integral in the lives of every day Americans. During this time period, politics were becoming increasingly divided with the development of the Cold War and the building financial crisis. With this growing political tension came a thirst to gain positive public opinion for both major parties. Conservative politicians took media as an opportunity to do just that by coining the term “liberal bias”. 

Essentially this term means that most media is skewed to side with left leaning liberal political opinions on all issues. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant because the popularization of this term caused the public to look at media through a different lens. The general public became very critical of any media outlet that seemed to side with the Democratic party. In his book What Liberal Media?, Eric Alterman identifies this initial development of the term as a major turning point in public media perception. Alterman asserts that “[The smart conservatives] know mau-mauing the other side is just a good way to get their ideas across- or perhaps prevent the other side from getting a fair hearing of theirs.” (2). By this he means that conservatives created the term liberal media as a way to diminish public viewpoint of liberal opinion. The public has a propensity to devalue an opinion when they hear the term “liberal bias” which actually helps conservatives assert their opinions more effectively. But this is not the only cause of the development of the term liberal media.

The term liberal media has had a much larger effect over time. Initially, media was neither left leaning nor right leaning. Media was relatively indifferent and attempted to report facts on the basis of journalistic integrity. But, as the public perception of media shifted, journalists actually gave into the term “liberal bias”. To put it bluntly, if journalists were going to be labeled as biased, why not just give in and become biased? It is actually a much more complicated than that because the development of media bias did not happen overnight. But at its base, that is the general ideology behind media becoming increasingly biased.

As this started to take effect, media became more and more overtly biased without any real repercussions. The public became increasingly distrustful of media and the media became more dishonest and biased. But, bias and dishonestly is not strictly limited to left leaning media outlets. As mass media has developed, conservatives have created another media outlet that can be just as biased as all other media outlets. Alterman actually declares, “Conservative have spent billions in the past three decades, both to pressure mainstream media rightward and to create their own parallel media structure” (227). While it is very interesting that conservatives have proactively worked towards creating a parallel media structure, I disagree that mainstream media has been pressured rightward. I believe there is just incredible tension between both sides of the political spectrum.

Media bias can come in many different forms. In an article posted by the online blog Media Matter in America authored by Craig Harrington, Harrington actually analyzes an article posted by Fox News regarding the fiscal progress of former President Barack Obama’s administration. In the article posted by Fox News, Fox actually produces two examples of media bias and misinformation. Fox continually talks about the situation in which the Obama Administration left America financially. But, Fox failed to identify the state financially in which Obama inherited the economy. Fox also speaks about the future budget proposals of President Trump. Harrington actually goes on to say, “[Fox News] says Trump’s proposals are significantly more expensive than those that were put forward by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton based on an analysis that assumes his proposed tax cuts generate economic growth. In fact, decades of evidence show no stimulative effects from tax cuts.” This example of misinformation shows just how dishonest major media could be, including Fox News, an extremely notable predominately conservative media outlet. 

Those examples of media misinformation are very glaring, but again, media bias comes in multiple forms. In an opinion piece posted on Fox News by John Lott, a prominent expert on gun laws and gun control, Lott analyzes an article posted by ABC News regarding the dangers of owning a gun as well as gun statistics. Lott identifies a prominent statistic that “the Centers for Disease Control reports that 76% of firearm injuries were for those under age 20 were for 17, 18, and 19 year olds.” Lott goes on to say, “This is hardly the impression ABC News created by showing pictures and stories of young children while mentioning the 7,391 injuries.” What Lott is saying is that ABC News is implying that thousands and thousands of very young children die from gun deaths every year. But, the majority of the deaths from this statistic are actually over 17 years of age and not even minors at all. This “cherry picking” of statistics and omitted information shows how extremely biased ABC News can be in reporting statistics. ABC News is a historically left leaning news outlet, so the misinformation of statistics will make the audience believe that gun deaths in young children is a very large issue.

Regardless of what your opinion may be regarding which political parties’ fiscal plans are more effective, or your opinions regarding gun control and gun laws, misinformation in media is an issue. In a study done by the Pew Research Center, it was discovered that 57% of Americans get their news from television. The issue with this is that there are very limited options for obtaining information on television. Most of these networks (Fox, ABC, CNN, etc…) are very politically affiliated one way or another. They all seem to have an agenda. So that means at least 57% of Americans receive their news from media outlets with a history of misinformation and bias. How can we as an American public vote effectively and make informed decisions if we do not have trustworthy information?

This is very important in situations that are very politically charged, for example on major issues like abortion, gun control, and even in election season. In an article titled “The Role of Political Identity and Media Selection on Perceptions of Hostile Media Bias During the 2012 Presidential Campaign” the authors analyze the effect media has on public opinion during elections, specifically during the 2012 Presidential Election. As I said earlier, approximately 60% of the public distrusts media. But, even though the majority of people distrust media they also turn to media for countless reasons during around the time of an election, for reasons including “political evaluation, vote guidance, self-expression, entertainment, information seeking, social utility, and to relax/pass time, among others” (430). What this means is that though the majority of the public does not trust media, they still turn to media for all of their information and are continually influenced by media that they claim to not trust. The authors go on to analyze how political parties are effected by media during the election season. Depending on the election, the media can be biased towards one party or another, it varies depending on the research. There is no real consensus, including during the 2012 election. But, what is important to recognize that “republicans often see media as favoring Democrats and Democrats see the media as favoring Republicans” (426). What this means is that both parties are attacked politically in countless different ways by media during election season. It is extremely complex in that regard because there is no definitive way to look at media in an unbiased way. If the media is slanted to both sides of the political spectrum, how do we decipher what is actual unbiased information for us to use to make decisions regarding a political candidate?

There are absolutely still people who do trust the media. Today, statistically 40% of Americans do trust the information given to them by the media. They believe all of the statistics, no matter how journalists interpret them, they believe any speculation that is portrayed as fact. To some people, any headline produced by a major media outlet is absolutely fact. I am not saying that these people are wrong by any means. Most media outlets do not outright lie; they are just very transparently biased. But the reason all of these people trust the media, is because the media panders to their opinions. This is not the fault of the public at all, this is just the effect of biased media seemingly very agreeable to a person who shares the opinions of that news source. What I mean by this is, a person who identifies as a liberal will find the news from known left wing media outlets to be very agreeable, therefore very trustworthy. For example, my grandfather, a very stark lifelong Republican, trusts everything that comes out of Fox News because it holds the same opinion that he holds. It may not seem it, but this phenomenon is a very bad thing.

The issue with only hearing the same supporting opinion all the time is that your mind can become extremely one dimensional and not reluctant to change. This makes being convinced of an alternate opinion impossible, which is a problem because we thrive on democracy. We thrive on the ability to debate and converse about issues that are essential to our society. Media just forces either side of any argument to be more and more entrenched in their own opinion to the point that compromise is seemingly impossible. This is true with major issues like gun control, abortion, and marijuana laws. Either side of the argument is so set in their opinion because all they hear are agreeable fact and supporting arguments all the time. No one is challenged to think critically about these major issues because of the bias associated with media. 

The real issue here is how can we move past our own opinions to hear the other side of the argument? How can we actually have a positive productive dialogue on any major issue if the media is so biased about these issues? How can the American public make informed decisions as voters and as contributing members of society if all of the information we receive is biased and wrong?

It would be great if we could simply force media outlets to always report exactly what is true and not worry about how many views their program gets, and not worry about swaying public opinion one way or another. But, that is not feasible and it is not right to decide what the media is and is not allowed to say. So what can we do?

Well, to avoid falling into traps of misinformation and bias we must diversify our personal media preferences. It is essential that we hear every side of every argument, not just simply listen to those that are agreeable to us. We need to understand why other people think the way they do, so that the problems produced by media bias to longer persist. 

Instead of following media narratives that attack the others opinions, we should listen to others opinions. For example, John Lott was right when analyzing ABC News’ statistics involving gun death and violence. Those statistics were “cherry picked” and they were presented in a way that what intentionally beneficial to ABC News’ argument. But the important point is to understand that thousands of people do die from guns every year. Even though it may have been wrong for ABC to portray their argument in such a biased way, there is still a point being made. We need to recognize these things by diversifying our views.

We can also diversify where we obtain our media from. The vast majority of Americans get their news from the television, which makes major news networks extremely competitive in producing information that people find interesting. But this also leads to biased news and misinformation. The best thing to do would be to look for other ways to get news, look at online blogs or even newspapers. This will be a good solution to finding more reliable, stronger sources of information. 

Diversity is key in curbing this problem. Diversity of opinion, diversity of resources, diversity of everything. Gaining countless other opinions on topics forces us, the audience, to look at media in a different light. Now that we can identify area is which media can be biased and corrupt, we can make strides to becoming more effectively informed resulting in more production as a society.  
