The Dangers of Media Bias
By: Jonathan Meng
By now, most have heard of fake news and its associated dangers. It’s an epidemic that has spread across the internet, changing the course of public opinion, swaying elections and generally misleading the populace. While many have raised justified concerns about imaginary stories hatched up for personal profit, a problem which is just as important—and possibly even more sinister—is selective reporting and the many other forms of media bias that surround us on a daily basis.
Though it is unreasonable to expect media organizations to report extensively on every story that pops up, the main danger from media bias arises when the selection process is corrupted. In larger, profit-driven companies, this often happens when the news source depends on ad revenue or “clicks” to make money. When trying to “clickbait,” it often makes sense for the news organizations to pursue stories with greater pomp and surrounding drama, regardless of their real importance.
Given a perfectly fair selection process, bias also permeates into the actual content of each article. Although news should, in theory, be completely objective, the personal views of each organization’s owners, investors, writers and editors will all nudge reporting in one direction or the other. Biases can also appear in the different ways information is arranged, or through subtle suggestions hidden beneath phrasing and word choice.
As our consumption of news becomes more and more rushed, many simply scroll through a news digest or even worse, a social media feed, skimming through eye-catching titles or reading through the first few paragraphs. This turn towards simplicity leads to less nuance, but it also gives news organizations a chance to hide important details near the middle or end of each article.
This problem only worsens when considering confirmation bias: our tendency to cherry pick information that fits nicely into our own worldview. Readers with certain opinions in mind often, whether actively or subconsciously, choose news sources that cater to our preconceptions, only serving to strengthen our ideas.
These factors can come together to cause a lack of diversity in news sources and reporting, beginning even when a story is first picked up.
One excellent example was The Exonian’s recent coverage of the American Math Competition (AMC). To quote the original prompt assigned by the editors, this article intended to “emphasize HISTORICAL success and trends (possibly data)” while looking “into gender/race disparity/age distribution.”
However, what appears in the article shows all the symptoms of a biased writing process, with both mischaracterization and blatant falsehoods. Take for example, the first paragraph of the story. The first sentence reads: “For years, the American Mathematics Competition (AMC) exam has faced criticism for failing to achieve equal gender participation.” This is a stretch—Google searches for “American math competition AMC criticism” and “American math competition AMC news” turned up zero gender participation related pieces. The study referred to as the justification for this article is more than a decade old, undermining the idea that this piece was written “in light of [the study’s] finding[s].”
The piece then continues its analysis of disparities primarily through statistics and first person accounts. Even after chalking up the confusing ratios to human error, it is interesting to note that many quotes are completely without context, allowing room for gross misinterpretation.
Bias also plays into the quotes. Of the twelve questions that appear to have been asked by Exonian reporters, seven refer to disparities in test-taking demographics, with a statistic noting the differences in gender participation. Because of the article’s focus on gender differences, nearly every quotation lifted from interviews came from those seven questions. This single minded focus on the topic gives a very strong impression to readers that gender disparity is the most important demographic issue surrounding the AMC, even though race, particularly the keywords of “Asian” and “Chinese,” seemed to show up nearly as often, despite the gender-focused questions.
What follows from this type of reporting is two main issues. This first is about a general perception surrounding The Exonian and the second is the misleading of readers. There is no issue with this type of investigative reporting; to pass off such pieces as news, however, is at best a very extreme form of mislabeling.
Many Exonians deeply involved in the competition math community felt that the article was an inaccurate portrayal, likely causing them to disengage with the school newspaper. Others without as much first-hand knowledge will read this article and take away that Exeter’s Math Club is an unwelcoming place for females, worsening whatever issues may exist. Though not always possible for Exeter-focused news, the message that usually follows after these types of articles is to search for more sources with greater amounts of nuance. It even helps to consider each article from the view of a possible critic, considering what biases may have gone into the forming of each piece. It's easy to read and nod in agreement with the statements that we already believe ourselves, but it takes another level of critical thinking to try and recognize the biases that go into almost every single piece of writing that you will ever see.