We're biased in favor of change, as opposed to the status quo. We're biased in favor of bad news, rather than good news. We're biased in favor of conflict rather than harmony.
Increasingly, we're biased in favor of sensationalism, scandal, celebrities and violence, as opposed to serious, insightful coverage of the important issues of the day.
But most of the time, on most stories, I don't think most reporters and editors are biased in the way that our most virulent critics suggest. We don't, consciously or subconsciously, slant our stories to fit our ideology.
The thesis for Shaw's story fits nicely with Cline's list of structural biases that are more of an influence on the media than ideology. For the most part, I agree with that analysis. However, far too many stories emerge in newspapers that don't fit the pattern Cline lays out so well. Generally, these stories touch on the issues of race, crime, immigration, homosexuality, abortion and religion, and while it may not always be a question of bias per se, it is often a question of fairness, as in: failing to quote sources holding opposing views to the thesis of the story, ignoring contrary evidence or statistics, etc. (I personally believe that the coverage of what I call the horse-race nature of politics is much fairer than many conservatives claim. Except, perhaps, in the pages of the New York Times.) The presence of slanted coverage on these important issues raises serious doubts about the media's "objectivity."
Of course, I'm sure Andrew, like myself, would doubt that any person can be completely, perfectly objective. That reminded of a book review for William McGowan's Coloring The News that I blogged about in the early days of this site, and this passage in particular:
Certainly, no journalism conference is complete without some genius making the objective claim that there is no such thing as objectivity. But while a God's-eye-view of how the universe really works is beyond the reach of mortal thought, the idea of journalistic objectivity never resided in such grand epistemological goals; its aim was fairness -- to ensure that readers hear both sides of an issue. Skepticism -- the permanent itch of the fourth estate -- derives from the corruptibility of facts and people, and not from academic unease with the metaphysics of being. It's a fair bet that Derrida expects fair and factual reporting in his morning newspaper -- otherwise, what use would news be?
That's as good a summary of the conservative "media bias" argument as I've seen.
