In a few opinion post, I’ve explored media bias. It’s unfortunate that we cannot rely on a Google search or a news article being unbiased. Google may present something as fact when in actuality, it is a paid advertisement. Google may write this off as a software defect, but it still happened. Don’t believe me, read here.
News articles are just as bad. Today I saw this one from allsides.com. Depending on where you get your news, migrants can either be a godsend or a real hurdle.
Or if you really want to see 2 different takes on migrants in one small town, read here.
How Can That Be?
2 journalists from 2 different media outlets authored dramatically different takes on the migrant impact on a small town in Pennsylvania. These were written about a week apart. Both authors made choices about what they’d investigate – what was important to their story, and what was not. The results are 2 very different versions of the story.
And Your Optimistic???
This happened recently. How can I be optimistic about media bias?
I’m not political. I’ve always been registered as an independent. I don’t follow political news, I tend to talk more about meatball sandwiches and golf than politics.
But even I have stumbled across the topic of media bias, and I have discovered (with very little effort) new sites like allsides and the tangle that present articles from the left, center and right leaning media outlets, and then offer some of their own perspective on the bias and what they see as the pros and cons of each point of view.
Treat Me Like A Grown-Up
I love that allsides and the tangle show me what different outlets are saying, give me their perspective, and then let me decide how I feel.
Pick any topic. There are complexities involved beyond who’s right and who’s wrong. I love when a news outlet thoroughly investigates a story, gives me several perspectives to think about and then lets me decide.
And, here’s the magic, with this approach, I may just learn something, and I may be swayed by the facts.
No one is swayed anymore. Fox publishes one side and MSNB publishes the opposite. There is no gray area. Each outlet’s readers blindly support the day’s hot topic as their outlet presents it. No one learns and no one’s swayed.
Wrap-Up
With these new outlets, I feel like I’ve learned more and I feel like it is OK to see multiple aspects to a situation. The fact that outlets like allsides and the tangle are starting to gain some traction is a positive for me.
Let’s see what happens.
Let me know what you think.