Media Bias… No. No?

“The media… are expected not only to be the watchdog of other people and

organizations, but also the watchdog of themselves (Niven 1).”Unbelievable! This is the

most ridiculous system ever conceived, and the naïve people under such a system would

have to learn eventually that they are giving too much power and putting too much faith

into the media. Likewise, a king puts these same circumstances on his subjects. Nobody

could check his absolute power and he has the ability to alter reality to serve his needs. If

the king said that the taxes need an increase of ten percent to expand the town, the people

would have to believe him. He is the only source of information and honesty is his

luxury. Anyone from the United States of America would recognize the injustice and

deceit that could lie within such a weak and easily corruptible system, and furthermore,

these systems go against the very values and ideals that our country holds dear.

Sadly, this writer does not agree with his words and neither should you. This is

exactly what happens in the media, and because of this astonishing reality, it is safe to

presume that the media has some bias attributed to self-regulation. Note we are not here

to analyze the degree nor the intensity of bias in the media, but to show from where this

bias spawns. The three main causes of media bias are sociological, economical, and

political.

Using a sociological prospective, media bias is created by society because the

values and beliefs of our culture are projected through the media, but media is controlled

by a specific audience in the dominate culture. Most national media stations do not come

from your hometown, but from major media sites and cities. This can lead to a perceived

bias from certain areas. Major news stations cannot state all the specific events and hot
topics that happen in every town and they certainly cannot express everyone’s opinions.

Therefore, they take the general opinion of the audience of their choice and socially

construct our knowledge of people, places, and controversy based on “the facts” they

collect and the manner they choose to display them. Let assume the major news network,

MNN, creates an online opinion poll for people who are for increasing, not changing, or

decreasing the sales tax in their state. They opened the polls at 6:00 AM and closed them at

7:00 PM. Let us also assume that in Texas, thirty-eight percent votes for “increase”, forty-

seven percent votes for “no change”, and the remaining fifteen percent votes for

“decrease”. Right from the start, MNN choose its target audience by setting limits on who

could participate in this survey. All of the people who participated must have some form

of internet access. Furthermore, the types of people who watch MNN and could

participate in the survey have distorted the types of representation. Then, they could

“display” the results in the manner of there choice. They could say, “Eighty-five percent

of Americans are against a decrease in sales tax” or “A vast majority of Americans are

for the decrease or static state of the sales tax.” The wording depends on the message

MNN want to send to its audience. This example also brings up the fact that a multitude

of worthy news stories can go on-air during our local news broadcast, yet we will see

maybe a hand full of them (Newman 66).

The reason is not a case of relative importance, but of economic gain. In 2000, six

companies controlled over half of all media outlets (Newman 68). This will results in

creating bias and half-truths.

“For instance, in 2001 NBC Nightly News aired an enthusiastic story about a

“revolutionary” new airplane being manufactured by Boeing called the Sonic Cruiser.
The story left out any mention of strong criticisms by aviation experts about the plane’s

technical flaws or by environmentalist about the plane’s poor fuel efficiency. NBC’s

parent company, General Electric, had invested over $1 billion in the creation of the

proposed jet’s engine (Jackson & Hart).” (Newman 68)

The media is not an exclusively information output, but a business; and as such, is

influenced and operated by money. Along those lines, the business of media connects to

politics through political action comities or PACs. Through PACs, corporations and

businesses can send money to the political parties they support. This opens a significant

window of opportunity where companies that control media can almost blatantly show

loyalty to Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, or Greens. In the example using MNN,

their choice of words could very well depend on who controls the station and where that

company’s political support moves. Then they choose in accordance to their parties

interests.

As previously stated, media bias is created in three ways. The first is through society and

the individuals in society who control the media. The second is through economical

interests of the media’s parent companies. The last is political connections using PACs to

political parties. I find most of this information to prove true but if upon reading this, you

form your own thoughts on the matter, and then I am glad to have caused this effect with

this paper.
 Works Cited

Jackson, J. & Hart, P. “Fear & Favor 2001 -- The Second Annual FAIR Report How

Power Shapes the News.” Extra! 12. March-April 2002. October 02, 2005

<http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2044>.

Newman, David. Sociology : Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life. 5th ed.

Thousand Oaks, California : Sage. 2004

Niven, David. Tilt? The Search for Media Bias. Westport, Connecticut : Praeger, 2002