The media is in a turbulent state and their response to this controversy will determine if America will ever trust them for news again. After this most recent election there has never been more uncertainty surrounding the press, and questions about whether they are biased or not. Based off the findings in this study, there is widespread conservative and liberal bias throughout the media. By requiring media outlets to include disclaimers in their articles and more publicized retractions of news stories, media partisanship in general will be greatly reduced. This political partisanship in the media that is being condoned by news outlets is dangerous because of the negative effects it has on our society, the distrust of important news stories, and its ability to drive a country farther apart than it has ever been before. 

The disparity in information provided by the news media can impact people’s interpretation of the facts, and a conservative or liberal bias can also have an effect on how the news in received. Many people want to put a label on if there is a conservative or liberal bias in the current media. It is extremely difficult to determine if there is a conservative or liberal bias in the media because of individuals’ different interpretations. Conservative bias is defined as partisan selection or distortion of information to support conservative policies such as less government control and power. Liberal bias is defined as partisan selection or distortion of information to support liberal policies such as increased government control and power. These biases can be spotted by detecting a strong personal opinion in a headline about an event or most coverage given to one side of the story compared to another. “Media Bias; Finding It, Fixing It” explains how if you are a liberal, you will tend to think the media is conservatively biased, and if you are a conservative, you will tend to think the media has a more liberal bias. This can skew surveys of whether people detect liberal or conservative media bias. For example, “Media Bias; Finding It, Fixing it” shows how “ABC’s news magazine Nightline with Ted Koppel raised eyebrows in 2005 when the show read off the name of every deceased American soldier, including their photograph.” (Sloan). When people see pictures of deceased soldiers they immediately feel sympathy for the soldier’s families causing them to question the intentions of the war. Conservatives consider this liberal bias because it destroys support for the Iraq war. On the other hand, liberals can justify this by saying it is just honest reporting of the war, and the American people have a right to know who has deceased in the war. Ratings drive the media, and sometimes media outlets will have to display bias that their viewers would agree with, just to retain their viewers. For example, “During the 2000 Republican Convention [Fox News’s] audience increased significantly, and the audience decreased when the Democratic convention aired.” (Sloan) Fox news knows that their audience pays more attention to Republican related stories, so now they have more of an incentive to report more Republican stories than Democratic stories. If Fox news, who is known as a conservative news outlet, where to start giving more coverage to Democratic candidates and speaking highly of them, their rating would drop significantly. News outlets have become so partial that most are either known as a conservative or liberal news network. This is an example of news outlets reporting based off ratings, which is dangerous for society because it will almost certainly lead to one political party receiving more coverage than the other. 

One of the major issues in media coverage that prevents honest reporting is conflicts of interest by broadcasters and journalists. A conflict of interest is defined as a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation or decision-making of that individual or organization. For example, a conflict of interest can be found in an article titled “Donald Trump Wins the Presidency in Stunning Upset over Clinton.” (Karen Tumulty). Throughout the article, the author takes several jeers at Trump and almost seems in denial of Donald Trump’s victory. It is apparent that this article displays liberal bias because it is partisan selection or disorientation of information to support liberal policies. Previously, Karen Tumulty had been accused of “hysterical liberal bias” by the McCain campaign after she had falsely accused them of racism. Tumulty did not apologize for her mistake, instead she only replied by saying “I grew up in Texas. I know what this stuff looks like.” This behavior is unacceptable because the true story of election night was distorted to support her agenda; she should have changed the way she reported on matters after being accused of such bias. It is obvious that Tumulty is biased and should no longer report on political matters, unless she starts being fair to both sides. Another example of a conflict of interest comes from the article “Trump’s Huge Election Night Changes U.S. Politics Forever.” (Podhoretz) In this article, the author John Podhoretz, defends Trump on several issues, and takes several shots at Clinton, giving reasons why she lost. Here, he displays conservative bias because it was a partisan selection of information that supported conservative policies. Podhoretz was a former speech writer for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. This most likely indicates that he has conservative views. It has almost become common knowledge that Podhoretz is a conservative by making comments such as “George W. Bush was the first great leader of the 21st century”. Having someone like John Podhoretz be a journalist at one of the major news outlets, the New York Post, is dangerous because he could report favorably on George W. Bush, the son of the man he wrote speeches for, and then unfavorably on someone such as Barack Obama, who he shares a different ideology. Journalists and broadcasters who have previous political ties damage the integrity of the stories they produce. There should be some way for readers to see if the author of the article they are reading has any former involvement with politicians.  These conflicts of interest lead to some of the most crucial forms of media bias that are contributing to driving Americans apart. 

Bias is defined as prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair. There are three major types of media bias that we see within the political media: gatekeeping, coverage bias, and statement bias. (White) The first, gatekeeping bias, “is the process of writers and editors selecting from a body of potential stories that will be presented to the public, and also deselecting those stories of which mass audience will hear nothing.” (White) News outlets will select stories that benefit their political views or damage the opposing party’s views, and ignore stories that either support the other political party, or damages their political party of choice. This practice is wrong because it prevents the public from receiving all news stories. For people to make decisions about topics, they should be able to see both side of the story, and gatekeeping robs individuals of that right. Coverage bias discusses the physical amount of coverage each side of the topic receives. (White) Honest media coverage would give half the coverage to one political party, and the other half to the opposite political party. An example of when coverage biases manipulated news outlets was when a conservative based network, such as Fox, reported on republican legislation for 28 minutes and then only democratic legislation for 2 minutes. Another example would be the coverage of the Benghazi attacks in Libya in 2012. The terrorist attack received an extremely low amount of media coverage from many main stream media outlets. These were most likely liberal news outlets that didn’t want to damage the reputation of the Obama administration. Coverage bias is wrong because if a news outlet disagrees with an event that occurred then they can give it a very small section in the newspaper or newscast, and then make another story the headlines and a majority of the coverage. Statement bias is when members of the media can interject their own opinions into the text of the coverage of an issue. (White) Statement bias can be determined by a researcher labeling an article favorable or unfavorable, or positive or negative. An example of statement bias was the New York Daily News’s front page of their paper the morning after Donald Trump was elected. The headline in big bold print was “HOUSE OF HORRORS” with Trump photo shopped to have clown makeup on his face. This newspaper obviously did not like Donald Trump and let all of their readers know it. An appropriate news headline without coverage bias would have stated “Donald Trump wins 45th President of the United States.” Coverage bias is wrong because interjecting your opinion in the news can distort facts and cause Americans to doubt the news. All these types of major media bias are used by the major news outlets at unprecedented levels and have a substantial negative affect on people who consume the news. 

The coverage of the Bush and Obama administrations are an easy way to show media biases. A lot of people feel that several of the major media outlets were very harsh on Bush throughout his presidency. An example of biased coverage was when Hurricane Katrina devastated the state of Louisiana. Bush was currently on vacation when the disaster struck, and cut it short so he could visit the Gulf Coast to survey the destination. By the time George W. Bush could visit the site it was 3 days after Katrina hit, and these were some of the headlines in the media at the time, “A compassionate Bush was absent right after Katrina, The 7 worst moments of George W. Bush’s presidency, Kanye West rips Bush at Telethon, What if They Were White? Katrina thrusts race and poverty onto national stage: Bush and Congress under pressure to act.” (Concha) This would be an example of statement bias because these news outlets allowed personal opinions to influence their headlines and articles. These headlines took away from the tragedy that occurred and turned the story into a racial matter. In a time when the media coverage should have been reporting the events that occurred and encouraging the public to provide help to the people of Louisiana, they lashed out at President Bush for being racist. In August 2016, several storms hit Louisiana creating the biggest national disaster to strike the United States since Hurricane Katrina. At least 13 people died, more than 85,000 people applied for federal disaster aid, 30,000 people needed to be rescued, and 40,000 displaced. After hearing news of the devastation, President Obama continued his vacation that included fundraising for Hillary Clinton. (Concha) The media’s response to this was mostly silence. Only one newspaper, The Advocate in Baton Rouge, called for Obama to end his vacation. This would be an example of gatekeeping because most of the media decided not to run stories about a very similar situation that happened 10 years ago. The media’s coverage of these two President’s in similar situation is indisputable, and helped drive a country apart in a time where they needed to come together following a devastating tragedy. 

Towards the end of the 2012 campaign, the media coverage received by President Obama was very positive. “Between Oct. 29 and Nov. 5, 29 percent of stories about Obama were positive, compared to 19 negative, while only 16 percent of Romney’s stories were positive, compared to 33 negative. It was Obama’s best week of media coverage since the Democratic National Convention, and only the second time in the cycle positive stories outnumbered negative ones for the president.” (Easley) Twenty-Nine percent of positive stories compared to 19 is a huge difference, especially in the days leading up to the election. This time period is when most voters are deciding who to vote for, and the media is trying to shape their opinion. Throughout the election, Romney’s negative stories outpaced Obama by 2 to 1. (Easley) This is just unacceptable and shows complete partiality. The news media exemplifies coverage bias here because they are giving way more attention to negative Romney and positive Obama stories than positive Romney and negative Obama. The media wanted President Obama to win reelection so they released a large amount of positive news articles about him and negative news articles about Romney leading up to the election. Another example of how the media reports differently when a certain party is in power is the media coverage of the 2014 midterm elections. The media’s “Big 3” ABC, CBS, and NBC, have only run 26 stories about the upcoming elections compared to 159 in 2006. In 2014, Republicans did very well in the midterm elections, compared to in 2006 when Democrats did very well in these elections. This is an example of gatekeeping bias because many of those major outlets decided to flat out not run a story on the Republicans success. These big three media outlets have been known to have a liberal bias, which could be why they were so resilient to give media coverage when Republicans were going to do well, instead giving more coverage when the Democrats were going to do well. There is no doubt that certain administrations receive different media coverage, and different political victories receive disproportionate coverage by certain outlets. 

Although media coverage of the Obama and Bush administration was putrid, the most recent election cycle was the most horrific display of media bias the world has ever seen. The way the media covered Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was unprofessional and changed people’s perception of the media forever. Because of this gross political bias, many media outlets apologized for how wrong they were about the election. At CBS, political correspondent and managing director of politics, Will Rahn, said “It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that, with a few exceptions, we were all tacitly or explicitly #WithHer, which has led to a certain anguish in the face of Donald Trump’s victory. More than that and more importantly, we also missed the story, after having spent months mocking the people who had a better sense of what was going on. This is all symptomatic of modern journalism’s great moral and intellectual failing: its unbearable smugness. Had Hillary Clinton won, there’d be a winking ‘we did it’ feeling in the press, a sense that we were brave and called Trump a liar and saved the republic.” (Kant) This echoes many what many of the American public thought: The media constantly bashed Trump and protected Hillary Clinton throughout the election cycle. This is typical statement bias. Journalist allowed their own opinions, many of which agreed with Hillary Clinton to affect their reporting and they ended up writing very negative and nasty thing about Donald Trump. The most frightening thing that happened here was that the media missed the story. People were shouting and screaming for change, but the reporters continued to side with Hillary Clinton, and refused to entertain the idea that Donald Trump could be President. Another example of the media coverage in the most recent election, “The broadcast evening news programs on ABC, NBC and CBS covered allegations against Trump by several women who claim he sexually assaulted them for more than 23 minutes combined on Thursday night.” (Concha) The same time these allegations came out about Trump, a story by WikiLeaks came out and accused Clinton’s campaign chair, John Podesta of several different things, including lying about the amount of contributions donors had made to the Clinton campaign. This story got a combined 1 minute and 7 seconds. The ratio of negative coverage of Trump vs. Clinton was 23:1. (Concha) In the newspaper, the New York Times had 11 negative stories on Trump, including one in the sports section, but zero on Clinton and WikiLeaks. (Concha) Here, coverage bias is utilized because of the disproportionate time given to two negative stories about each of the Presidential candidates. This gross political bias is unprecedented and makes little sense. Both stories are very harmful to the candidates, but only one received a majority of the coverage. This dismal bias is one of the main contributing factors that has decreased the trust of the media. 

A plethora of attention has been given to the polls during the most recent election cycle. Even these polls can become a victim of bias when the polling information in reported in several different ways to highlight the popularity of one candidate over another. In May 2016, The Washington Post and ABC News showed Trump leading Clinton 46% to 44%. To alter the results of this poll, they then asked a hypothetical question that if Romney was running as an independent candidate who would you vote for? (Concha) The Post and ABC knew this would split the Republican vote which would in turn lower Trump’s percentage to put him behind Clinton. This question should have never even been asked, considering Romney hadn’t announced any intention of running for president. These polls were one reason everyone was so shocked that Trump won. Leading up to the election, almost every poll had Clinton winning, thanks to partisanship. The media bias wasn’t only against Trump; it was against Hillary Clinton too. Clinton’s “family foundation to make an illegal $25,000 donation to a political campaign — expressly barred by law — to the campaign of a Democratic Florida attorney general. And that the AG, who was investigating Clinton for consumer fraud, dropped the investigation shortly after receiving the illegal $25,000 donation from the Clinton Foundation, and then endorsed Clinton’s presidential candidacy and was given a special spot speaking to the Democratic National Convention.” (Davis) Donald Trump did this exact same thing with the Florida Republican attorney general. The difference in media mentions between the two is jaw dropping. From September 1-4, the Clinton story was reported about 680 times compared to the 20 times the Trump story was mentioned. (Davis) This is coverage bias because of the large amount of airtime the story about Hilary received, when Trump did something equally as bad. The media went out of its way to portray Hillary as a corrupt figure. Another example of the media being biased against Clinton was when FBI director James Comey made headlines by re opening the investigation into Clinton’s emails. Nine days later, Comey said there was no new evidence and that their conclusion remained unchanged. Because the media made such a big deal about this without waiting for the results, Clinton’s lead over Trump was cut in half, international financial markets plunged, the FBI became divided, and the Democrats chances of claiming a congressional majority was undermined. (Benen). This could be considered statement bias because outlets that wanted Clinton to lose, reported on this story as if these accusations were almost certainly true, when in reality they had no evidence to back them up. Bret Baier, a political correspondent at Fox News, even went so far as to say that Clinton was “likely to be indicted.” (Media Matter) The media is a very powerful tool, and most of the time it is used wrongly for personal gain and to benefit or hurt a certain entity. During this election, media coverage was so bad, that less than 30% of the American people think they are receiving strictly facts from the media. 

Some people believe that media bias is a myth. These people believe that all information provided to them through the media is unaltered and all factual. One article says that all media outlets “adhere to in house ethics and keep politicians at arm’s length” (Paulson). This article blames the bad reputation of the media on constant attacks by politicians on media stories that they don’t agree with. It also explains that news rooms are understaffed and some mistakes are made because journalists work in haste to meet deadlines. These are both very valid points. The articles main claim that “most traditional news media strive daily to report about their communities without regard to political affiliation or special interests” (Paulson) disagrees with the point in my thesis that most news outlets are biased and affected by political affiliations. I would refute this claim by citing evidence given in the actual article. The article states that according to the Pew Research Center “60% of Americans believe the news organizations are politically biased, and only 29% of Americans believe the news media get the facts right” (Paulson). How can someone say that the media isn’t biased when they just gave evidence that less than 30% of the American population think they are reporting strictly facts? I would also refute this claim by providing evidence of how many high ranking journalists have worked very closely with top Republican and Democratic politicians, which debunks the author’s claim that the media keeps politicians at arm’s length.

Media Bias has caused people to lose all trust in the media. Because of this, there must be a solution to fix this problem that is affecting how Americans get their news. No solution can solve all media bias, because as I have already stated, people perceive media bias in dozens of different ways. A solution that would help greatly reduce political media bias is that if you have any previous political connections such as being a speech writer for a President or affiliations with a campaign, you must recuse yourself from the story if it has to do with politics or publish a disclaimer that you have this previous political experience and it could have affected how you wrote the piece. This solution will be modeled after what stock analysts have to include at the bottom of the articles they write about stocks, detailing who they are and any connections that they have with the material being written. For example, a stock analyst has to disclose that the opinion in this article does not reflect the opinion of the company they work for, and if they have any possible connections about the material that is being written such as owning shares of Apple and then writing a positive article about them. In my solution if a journalist worked with the Obama administration they would have to disclose that information if he or she was writing an article about him. Also, before an article is published, an independent voter employed by the company must read over the article or watch the broadcast to detect any possible media bias. This person must be an independent registered voter who has complete impartiality in this situation. If this person doesn’t detect any partisanship, then the outlet can publish the story. Also, if a journalist makes a mistake because of bias, he or she must put out a retraction that will be on the front page of this editorial. This will be the best way for readers to know there was a mistake and help regain the trust of the Newspaper, since they are admitting that a mistake was made. Another practice that would improve the ethics of journalism would be, for news outlets to provide a class on the dangers of media bias and how to prevent it. This class would be similar to the ethics classes offered at almost every college for journalism students. The vetting for political bias should be most serious in the month leading up to a Presidential Elections to ensure the media does not play a role in who wins. Reporting should be done right down the middle, no bias or preference given to a certain side. The media’s job is to report the news with as little bias as possible and adhere to the truth. When people read a news story about something that occurred, they should be receiving mostly facts, not the author’s opinion and interpretation of the events. Americans should not have to be concerned if the story they are reading is written by a liberal or conservative author who might have included information that would fit with their own ideology. 

Nobody can agree if there is a liberal or conservative bias in the media, but I think everyone can agree that there is a bias in general, which is negatively affecting society. One of the major issues in the media today is how serval journalists and broadcasters have conflicts of interest that cause them to be biased in their reporting. This bias is done through the three major types of media bias--gatekeeping, coverage bias, and statement bias--which are causing Americans to distrust the news. The media coverage between the Obama and Bush administrations were strikingly different and showed the effects of media outlets agreeing with a candidate’s policies. The bias displayed by the media in the most recent election was the worst it has ever been and polarized the country the more than ever. While some people argue that bias in the media is a myth, almost every survey conducted shows that Americans think the media is biased by a large margin. To remedy this problem, I have suggested that we include disclaimers at the end of articles, more publicized retractions, and other measures meant to increase journalistic integrity. This solution would just be one way to address the obvious need for bringing integrity back to journalism, eliminating political bias, helping regain the trust of the American people, and hopefully lessening the divide amongst Americans. It is imperative that people can trust the media because this is the source of information with which they stay up to date with world events, determine polices or decisions they approve of, and most importantly, decide how to cast their vote. 
