“The media’s the most powerful entity on Earth, they have the power to make the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses,”(Malcolm X). In history, media bias has existed since the nineteenth century , most newspapers were actually linked with their particular political party and the economic interests of their publisher. It is a relatively recent development that reporters should be absolutely, unwaveringly objective in stories involving some possibility of bias. In this analysis, news/media outlets, are taken to mean any news organization, TV news networks, magazines, newspaper, etc. and media bias is the term for these aforementioned news outlets to misrepresent an argument, show
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Sarah Childress, in an article on pbs.org, citing a study by Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstien Center, says that it, “...underscores the role that the press can play in anointing — or sinking — a candidate, as well as keeping voters under-informed by focusing only on the horse race instead of the candidates or relevant issues,”(Election Coverage Skewed by “Journalistic Bias”). This “Focusing on the horse race” that Childress is referring to is part of what causes confusion in viewers when they are watching a news story, they see what the Media outlet is showing them, after they have deliberately omitted certain parts of the story, when a person only sees one side of an argument, they can be confused as to why anyone would believe otherwise, or simply be confused as to whether or not they’re seeing everything. Larry Sanger, in an article for The Federalist claims, “Another mistake is the claim that bias is a trivial problem. ‘It happens, sure,’ I’ve heard repeatedly, ‘but everybody can read between the lines. Maybe if journalists would simply admit their bias, readers would stop being so bothered by it,’”(3 Major Mistakes People Make About Media Bias). Sanger is writing about mistakes in the interpretation of media bias, and it’s quite compelling, however, he doesn’t mention the fact that readers and viewers should not have to read between the lines of their media outlets journalistic bias, they should be able to go to one news story and get the facts about it, not be confused by having to go to multiple sites and “read between the lines.” In an article on the 2016 election and the media’s role in it, John Sides stated, “it varies over time and appears to depend on the most salient events. For example, Donald Trump’s worst weeks may have come in November 2015, around the time he suggested the need for a national database of Muslim citizens and also mocked a disabled New York
Sarah Childress, in an article on pbs.org, citing a study by Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstien Center, says that it, “...underscores the role that the press can play in anointing — or sinking — a candidate, as well as keeping voters under-informed by focusing only on the horse race instead of the candidates or relevant issues,”(Election Coverage Skewed by “Journalistic Bias”). This “Focusing on the horse race” that Childress is referring to is part of what causes confusion in viewers when they are watching a news story, they see what the Media outlet is showing them, after they have deliberately omitted certain parts of the story, when a person only sees one side of an argument, they can be confused as to why anyone would believe otherwise, or simply be confused as to whether or not they’re seeing everything. Larry Sanger, in an article for The Federalist claims, “Another mistake is the claim that bias is a trivial problem. ‘It happens, sure,’ I’ve heard repeatedly, ‘but everybody can read between the lines. Maybe if journalists would simply admit their bias, readers would stop being so bothered by it,’”(3 Major Mistakes People Make About Media Bias). Sanger is writing about mistakes in the interpretation of media bias, and it’s quite compelling, however, he doesn’t mention the fact that readers and viewers should not have to read between the lines of their media outlets journalistic bias, they should be able to go to one news story and get the facts about it, not be confused by having to go to multiple sites and “read between the lines.” In an article on the 2016 election and the media’s role in it, John Sides stated, “it varies over time and appears to depend on the most salient events. For example, Donald Trump’s worst weeks may have come in November 2015, around the time he suggested the need for a national database of Muslim citizens and also mocked a disabled New York