Some reasons a person may be biased include:
- Religion
- Learned values, particularly from family or personal experience.
- Ignorance, lack of information.
- Motivation from another source (particularly monetary).
Having a bias in not necessarily a bad thing, especially if it is based on reason and logic, but the absense of those two qualities almost always leads you into dangerous territory
Biased news coverage can be especially dangerous. It is very easy for a reporter to skew a story so that it appears 180 degrees away from what it actually is; because of this it is important to know that the news coverage you are getting is as objective as possible.
If you are a busy person it might be hard to research your news sources. So how does someone with a crammed schedule get reliable news coverage? Here are some easy to spot signs that something is a little fishy:
- The reporter says "some say" instead of giving the name of someone.
- The article seems to use general statements more than specific.
- The reporter does a "character attack" when an interview gets too hot.
- The article is missing the author's name.
- A quick google does not provide any similar stories.
- The reporter seems more interested in keeping you afraid than keeping you informed.
It is not possible for journalism to be completely unbiased, so if all else fails find a news source that shares similar biases with you.
1 comment:
Bias is really hard to avoid... everything is open to interpretation. And with all the spin, sometimes it's hard even to trust mainstream news services to be objective and factual. Sometimes it's nice to come across media sources with the same biases as I have though.
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