Pro & Con #5: Is the Media Biased?

Throughout generations, the United States news media’s central goal has been to serve the purpose of educating the general population on what is happening around the world. This poses the question, “If the United States news media serves to educate the general public, how are the news media reporters keeping their own biases out of the news reports?” The answer is simply they can’t keep their own biases out of the news report because everyone is entitled to their opinions. News, in general, is getting too bias that the general public are not trusting the news media reports. With this in mind, it brings to light the debate between objectivity and subjectivity. To help limit the United States news media bias, The United States news media corporations need to understand the history of the news media, the purpose of the news media, and the differences between subjectivity and objectivity. For these reasons, I am resolved that when in conflict, the United States needs to lean towards more objectivity, and less subjectivity because the news media is more bias than it use to be. The United States media should abstain from the Status Quo of the news biases.

First, the United States news media corporation needs to understand the History of the news media. Some historians refer to the news media as the 4th estate. When the settlers placed themselves into their colonial livelihood in the middle of the 1600’s, they decided to start a printing press. However, the printing press was only allowed to print stuff that did not say anything seditious about the King of Britain.

Eventually, the colonists were tried of listening to that horrid King of Britain and started the revolutionary press. The revolutionary press came with a revolutionary idea. This revolutionary idea was the idea that the printing press can say anything seditious about that wicked King of Britain. They can say anything because King George III imposed the stamp act that affected the livelihood of the innocent colonists.

After the revolutionary press, the Partisan Press came along. This where the News articles became more subjective and less objective. The most notable papers that were printed by the Partisan Press was the Anti-Federalist Papers and the Federalist Papers. The Partisan Press was home to many different types of presses. One press might be swayed to a Whig position, while the other may well be swayed to a republican position.

This led to a new and improved way of publishing, which is professionalism. Professionalism encompasses strict objectivity and basically no subjectivity. Under professionalism, the news reporters just report the facts and nothing more and nothing less. Also, the news reporters keep their opinions out of the article. This worked moderately well.

In the current decade, the Electronic Media has released more articles than the professionalism. The Electronic Media enables a reader to go online and view the articles instead of waiting for two days to a week for a news article. Examples of the Electronic Media includes but are not limited to: television, radio, internet, and podcasts. With this immediate accessibility to news article, it can contribute to the rise of yellow journalism. Yellow journalism is written articles that are subjective and inaccurate that allows the news media corporation to get more cash flow. In modern times, Yellow Journalism is called fake news. Fake news is defined as “news articles that are intentionally and false and could mislead readers” (Allcott and Gentszhow, 2017, para 5). The News Media have countless articles that fits under the category of fake news (AKA Yellow Journalism). Examples of Yellow Journalism includes The 1835 Great Moon Hoax, the 2006 Flemish Secession Hoax, and the 2019 Migrant Settlement Hoax in the E.U. Therefore, with the history of the news media and the rise of Yellow Journalism, the News Media corporation needs to use more objectivity and less subjectivity to limit their reporter’s opinions in the news articles and lower the articles that are contributing to the rise of Yellow Journalism.

Second, News Media Corporations, such as CNN or Fox News, need to look at the purpose of the News Media. The Purpose of the News Media is to educate the citizens on the news facts. Through the purpose of the news media, the reporter’s job is to report the facts, not their biases. On the sitcom, SuperGirl, Kara Danvers (AKA Supergirl), who was an assistant to the media mogul Cat Grant, decided to write an article. This article was rejected by the editor because it didn’t present facts. However, the News article did include her biases. This rejection, brought on by the editor, led her to pursue the accurate sources instead of relying on her opinions. This a fictional example of objectivity should be more of a factor in publishing an article, instead of relying on subjectivity. Therefore, through the example of SuperGirl and the purpose of the news media corporation, The News media corporations need to rely more heavily on objectivity and less on subjectivity to limit the presence of biases.

Third, News Media Corporations need to look at the differences between objectivity and subjectivity. Objectivity relies more on facts. Subjectivity, however, relies more on the opinions of the news reporters. Professionalism encompasses more objectivity instead of subjectivity. When a reporter reports on a news story, the reporter usually reports the facts. However, sometimes the news reporters do not use facts, instead they insert their own opinions. The news reporters insert their own opinions for one to two reasons. One, to gain money through sponsorship. The second is to publish false stories to make more money. The first reason is more likely. For example, CNN has a sponsor, who holds a democratic point of view. This democratic view, then, spreads across the CNN network, to fund their news network. This is okay but sometimes they get so dogmatic in their views that they destroy our trust in the news media. Therefore, The News Media Corporations need more objectivity and less subjectivity to limit the presence of biases.

Through the history, purpose, and differences of News Media, it is evident that the News Media corporations have a bias towards one particular political party. The news media is bias because they rely heavily on getting sponsors to allow them to stay in business. Therefore, I am resolved that The United States news media corporations should rely heavily on objectivity and less on subjectivity to limit the presence of biases.

References

Allcott, H. & Gentzhow, M. (2017). Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Journal of Economic perspectives (31), 2. Retrieved from ProQuest Research library database.