NEWS: Are any Non Biased?

The "news" has always been that way, and the individuals only complain when it doesn't necessarily fit his/her view. It's always up to the individual to seek for various news sources, deliberately, especially those on the other end of the spectrum. That's why some Chinese tried to listen to the "Voice of America" and seek for magazines from Hong Kong, and try to access any other Western voices, back then. Being in the Western world, many of them are also interested in the voice from those not so democratic official sources. The truth is always somewhere in between, no matter how close it might be to one side, in some cases.

That being said, a healthy system should always encourage different voices. Whenever a country or a party is in lockstep, general public should be very concerned.

PLUS: News were reported or simply made by people. All people are biased one way or another, adding the financial aids news agencies needed, every single news agency is biased by default. Those claiming "fair and balanced" are normally most biased, same as those people claiming most fair and just are most dangerous.

 

You talk as if there was a time the news was impartial. I think there are some offenders who are worse than others and some who try to be balanced and some who don't. But, removing partiality from reporting seems to me like an impossibility.

There may have been a time when it was less manipulative. Taking an historic view though, you can probably say we're better now than we were in, say, 1800. Does that make you feel any better?

 

I might disagree with that. Sometime in the mid 1990 ish, the three major networks were bought by entertainment companies - NBC / GE (universal), ABC by Disney, CBS by Viacom - and the motors became different; you had new divisions reporting to companies with tremendous experience amking money from entertainment. The line had been blurry before, but it is more clear now - those news broadcasts are out to make money and entertain, not uncover truth, by and large. Not every moment is crap, but the larger picture remains consistent, profit driven, etc. And though the Katie Couric and Brian Williams and Charlie Gibson might not seem meaningful to enlightened interweb users like ourselves, it is still the primary source of news for people in this country.

 

And PS. Fox is and always was an entertainment company, they never had an actual news division to begin with.

 

The closest I have found on a regular basis in print has been Christian Science Monitor. Other than that NPR is usually pretty good about covering different angles to most stories.

 

A long history of news division only proves your experience in news-making craft, not necessary your objectivity in news reporting. State-owned channals somewhat represents government view, and privately or publicly owned ones represent those large financial supporters. It was, is, and will always be interest-driven, politically or economically or both. A better system and more watchful public will limit some of the outright lies, but you are not going to have any unbiased news source. If we can't achieve absolute objectivity, there is no reason we can require others to, nor there is any possibility others will be able to.

 

For TV news, I always found the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS to be balanced, well represented on both sides of the issue, and thought provoking.

 

Absolutely not. All news agencies have leanings and biases and I am OK with that as long as they admit to them.

I watch FOX News and I don't think there would be a huge outcry over it if their tagline weren't "Fair and Balanced." In actuality, FOX News is just like CNN but with a slightly different lean. The problem is they claim to have no political leanings and that's what gets them in trouble (but also what keeps their name in the spotlight). Both CNN and FOX have political leanings and I don't think anyone would care if both of them wouldn't try so hard to convince us that they're the ultimate in unbiased reporting.

In reality, nobody is balanced. It's almost impossible to be balanced when reporters themselves have political leanings and view things through a certain lens. On the flip side, some would argue it's also hard to be balanced when news organizations are run by corporations. Regardless of which you believe, news agencies cannot help but be biased on the news they report.

I would much rather have news agencies that admit their biases and allow citizens to get their news with the understanding that this is one side and there is another side. The problem with news today is that many believe it to be a straight reporting of the facts when it isn't.

 

I am not sure I buy this. I don't think we should throw "objectivity" out the window as an unachievable goal - I mean this as viewers, not as content producers. When we just punt on the idea of 'reporting the truth as it occurred' - and instead surrender to the idea that all 'news' is in some way means to a larger political goal, or establishment of a worldview, I think that is overly bleak and too cynical about the field of journalism in general. And I think it gives us a free pass on accepting info from our own 'side' without skepticism - because 'everyone is doing it', why shouldn't we?

CNN sucks, which is why I do not put it up against Fox for comparison. Fox's execution of what it aims to be is absolutely terrific. But equating Fox's reporting and sophistication and compleixty with that of, let's say Jim Lehrer's News Hour, is a mistake. And ABC or CBS or NBC - they are beholded to coporate interests, rather than overtly political ones, but it's biased in that way too - they hold no candle to Newshour.

And saying that Frank Rich is equivalent to a left-leaning Ann Coulter, saying that Rush Limbaugh is he equivalent of a right-leaning NPR, that Bill O'Reilly is a right-leaning version of Hendrick Herzberg, that's not right. And calling Arianna Huffington a left-leaning David Brooks is incorrect too - it's not all bias. Some is about grasp of facts. There are some independent measures of truth, we need to seek them out, not lazily surrender to those whcih clearly propogate some pre-fab persepctive.

it should be reversed - facts should inform or worldview, not vice versa. We should be vigilant about holding our informations sources to that standard.

 

Tonight, I'll be watching the only non-biased TV newscast...

Comedy Central has their "Midterm Midtacular" with Stewart, Colbert, and... Dan Rather.

 

British Broadcasting Channel
BBC World is unbiased because they get nothing for supporting any interest groups. They also covered more stories around the world than CNN, MSNBC and FOX. there are more important things besides the election that you need to know

 

I listen to BBC world service and I can say that they actually do have a bit of a bias. If I were British I probably wouldn't notice it, but it is there.

I think there are biased news sources which try to eliminate their bias with varying degrees of success, and biased news sources which embrace their bias.

I would describe that as the important distinction.