Bias Old

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Issue
  3. Big Picture
  4. Bias
  5. Arguments the News Media is Politically Biased
    1. The New York Times editorials are one-sided, expressing a liberal point of view.
    2. Journalists tend to be liberal and can’t help slanting their reporting. A Pew Research Poll, for example, found that reporters are more liberal than the population at large.
    3. Partisan-leaning editorial pages are correlated with the amount of news coverage of scandals.
    4. Bias is evident in single news stories
    5. The tone of news coverage in national news outlets is anti-Trump
    6. Polls indicate that people believe the news media is biased
  6. Arguments the News Media is not Politically Biased
  7. Conclusions
    1. Person and Process/Product Bias
    2. Examples of Process/Products of Reasoning
    3. Canons of Rationality
    4. Proving Bias and the Absence of Bias
  8. Stuff from Current Bias Page
    1. Claim the New York Times has a liberal bias
    2. Claim that the editorials, news coverage, and news reporting of the Times are biased in the way a biased investigation is biased
      1. Are the Times Editorials Biased?
      2. Is the Times News Coverage Biased?
    3. Main Points
    4. Media Bias: Media Slant
    5. Media Bias: Reasoning Bias
  9. Allsides
    1. Allsides Media Bias Chart
    2. Email Exchange with Allsides
  10. Ad Fontes Media
    1. Static Media Bias Chart
    2. Interactive Media Bias Chart
  11. About Media Bias / Fact Check
    1. Email Exchange with About Media Bias / Fact Check
  12. Issue: Is the news media politically biased?
    1. Complications
    2. Graphic
    3. Arguments that news media is politically biased
      1. Editorials express a partisan point of view
      2. Journalists tend to be liberal and can’t help slanting their reporting
      3. Partisan-leaning editorial pages are correlated with the amount of news coverage of scandals
      4. The tone of news coverage during Trump’s presidency was anti-Trump
      5. Polls indicate that people believe the news media is biased
    4. Arguments news media is not politically biased
      1. If news articles were reasoning-biased they would be logically and epistemically flawed.
      2. A newspaper’s editorial slant exhibits bias only in the inclining sense.
      3. Reputable newspapers maintain journalistic standards of objectivity and fairness
    5. Conclusions

Introduction

  • News stories typically provide context for the news they report. But the context can be misleading.   An example:
    • Debt ceiling increase sends Dems into full apocalypse mode: ‘Chaos,’ ‘recession,’ ‘global financial crisis’FoxNews
      • “The prospect of negotiating a debt ceiling increase with Republicans is prompting warnings of economic ruin and chaos from President Biden’s White House and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate.
      • Democrats for days now have been fixated only on what might happen if there is no agreement to raise the debt ceiling by the summer, and not the far more likely possibility of agreeing to spending cuts at the federal level over the next few months in return for an increase in the government’s borrowing limit.”
    • The second paragraph makes it sound like the Democrats are only concerned about a highly unlikely event rather than a far more likely possibility, like being more concerned about an attack by aliens from outer space than an attack by terrorists, giving the impression that the Democrats are being irrational.

Issue

Is the news media politically biased, i.e. biased in favor of a political party or ideology?

Big Picture

Bias

  • Person Bias
    • A person is biased if they have an unreasoned preference or inclination for or against something.
  • Process/Product Bias
    • A process or product of reasoning is biased if it deviates from the canons of rationality because of person bias
  • View Bias

Arguments the News Media is Politically Biased

The New York Times editorials are one-sided, expressing a liberal point of view.
  • A paper’s Editorial Point of View, or Editorial Slant, is the official opinion of the paper, set forth in its editorials. 
  • First Objection
    • A process or product of reasoning is biased only if it violates the canons of rationality because of person bias.
    • Like a lawyer’s closing argument, an editorial may be one-sided but perfectly rational, in which case it’s not biased. 
    • Therefore, the fact that a paper’s editorials take a political stand does not logically imply they’re biased.
  • Second Objection
    • A paper’s editorial point of view doesn’t mean its news reporting is biased.  Reputable newspapers have strict policies on the separation of news and opinion.
      • Washington Post Policies and Standards
        • “The separation of news columns from the editorial pages is solemn and complete. This separation is intended to serve the reader, who is entitled to the facts in the news columns and to opinions on the editorial and “op-ed” pages.”
  • Kinds of Articles in the News Media
    • News Reports report newsworthy events
    • Feature Articles explore news stories in more depth or cover related topics.
      • News Analysis, Fact-Checks, Timeline, Background, Text of Documents, Opinion Polls, Videos, Photos, Graphics, Interviews, Personality Profiles, Historical Parallels, Maps, Expert Opinion, Primer, Explainer, Follow-up
    • Opinion Pieces set forth opinions and arguments, make value judgments and normative statements
      • Editorials: official opinion of the newspaper, written by the editorial board.  Editorials set forth the newspaper’s point of view.
      • Op-Eds and Columns: written by regular and guest columnists
      • Letters to the Editor: letters written by the general public.
Journalists tend to be liberal and can’t help slanting their reporting. A Pew Research Poll, for example, found that reporters are more liberal than the population at large.
  • Objection
    • A person’s point of view doesn’t mean he’s incapable of being impartial in conducting an investigation. 
    • People can, and do, overcome their biases.
Partisan-leaning editorial pages are correlated with the amount of news coverage of scandals.
  • Newspaper Coverage of Political Scandals, published in The Journal of Politics
    • journalistsresource.org/studies/society/news-media/news-bias-political-scandals
      • Partisan-leaning editorial pages are strongly correlated with biases in the amount of reportorial coverage of scandals. Democratic-leaning newspapers devote significantly more attention to scandals involving Republican politicians than scandals involving Democrats, and Republican-leaning newspapers do the opposite. This apparent bias holds for scandals both local and national in origin.
      • On average, a news organization with a higher degree of editorial endorsements for one political party will devote 26% more reportorial news coverage to a scandal involving a member of the opposite party.
  • Objections
    • A paper may devote a large amount of coverage to a scandal because of its newsworthiness rather than its editorial point of view, e.g. The Washington Post’s coverage of the Watergate Scandal
    • Correlation doesn’t prove causation
      • A and B’s being correlated proves neither that A causes B nor that B causes A
Bias is evident in single news stories
  • Biased news stories sometimes make it to print. But there’s no evidence such stories are widespread
  • Reputable newspapers maintain journalistic standards of objectivity and fairness.
    • journalistsresource.org/syllabi/syllabus-covering-the-news
      • Objectivity remains an ideal, a method for guarding against spin and personal bias by examining all sides of a story and testing claims through a process of evidentiary verification. Practiced well, it attempts to find where something approaching truth lies in a sea of conflicting views.
  • Reputable newspapers issue retractions and corrections
    • WaPo Fact-checking President Trump’s ‘Fake News Awards
      • “To sum up, at least seven of the eleven “Fake News” winners resulted in corrections, with two reports prompting suspensions or resignations. One of the winners was simply a tweet that was quickly corrected and never resulted in a news article. One was an opinion article in which the author later retracted his prediction.”
  • A news story may be mistaken, not because of bias, but for other reasons, e.g. sloppy journalism
The tone of news coverage in national news outlets is anti-Trump
  • News Coverage of Donald Trump’s First 100 Days
  • The tone of a news article is judged from the perspective of the subject. Negative stories include stories where the subject is criticized directly or where an event, trend, or development reflects unfavorably on the subject.
  • Second Objection: A negative headline may be more objective than a neutral headline.
    • 10 ways the media described Trump’s ‘false,’ ‘bogus’ voter fraud ‘lie’ WaPo
      • Fox News: Trump tells Congressional leaders 3-5 million ‘illegals’ cost him popular vote
      • Las Vegas Review-Journal: Trump insists voter fraud cost him popular vote
      • Newsmax: Report: Trump still saying voter fraud robbed him of popular vote
      • New York Times: Trump repeats lie about popular vote in meeting with lawmakers
      • Wall Street Journal: Donald Trump repeats unsupported claim that voter fraud skewed election tally
      • Washington Post: Without evidence, Trump tells lawmakers 3 million to 5 million illegal ballots cost him the popular vote
      • Politico: Trump repeats debunked voter fraud claim at meeting with Hill leaders
      • ABC News: Trump repeats unsubstantiated claim about voter fraud during election
      • CNN: Trump talks replacing Obamacare, reiterates unsubstantiated voter fraud claims
      • USA Today: Trump revives false claim that illegal ballots cost him popular vote
      • Slate: Trump, again, falsely claims he lost the popular vote because of millions of fraudulent votes
      • New York Daily News: President Trump still pushing unconfirmed claims that voter fraud cost him the popular vote
      • Business Insider: Trump repeats debunked claim that voter fraud caused him to lose popular vote to Hillary Clinton
      • New York Post: Donald Trump brings up bogus voter fraud claims — again
      • Associated Press: Trump wrongly blames fraud for loss of popular vote
Polls indicate that people believe the news media is biased
  • Bias Perceived in News Coverage, February 2012
  • Six in 10 in US See Partisan Bias in News Media, April 2017
  • Voters Say Media Still Anti-Trump, January 2017
  • Objection
    • According to the Gallup poll, most Americans say the media is “often inaccurate.”  Since there’s no evidence for this claim, the belief that the media is biased may also have no basis in fact.  The key question is not how many people believe the media is biased, but  why they believe the media is biased.  If they have good reasons, what are they?

Arguments the News Media is not Politically Biased

  • If news articles were biased they would be logically flawed, making false or unsupported claims, cherry-picking the evidence, distorting the facts, drawing unwarranted conclusions, and so on.  There’s no evidence that news articles are in general logically deficient.
  • A person’s point of view doesn’t mean they can’t be impartial.  People can, and do, overcome their biases.
  • Reputable newspapers maintain journalistic standards of objectivity and fairness, keeping a Chinese Wall between news reporting and the editorial page

Conclusions

  • The burden of proof is on those who claim media bias.
  • The arguments considered fail to establish the news media is politically biased.
  • Process/product bias is hard to prove since it requires showing that
    • the process violates the canons of rationality,
    • any logical flaws in the process result from person bias rather than from sloppy reasoning.
Person and Process/Product Bias
  • Person Bias
    • A person is biased if he/she has an unreasoned preference or inclination for or against something.
  • Process/Product Bias
    • A process or product of reasoning is biased if it deviates from the canons of rationality because of person bias
Examples of Process/Products of Reasoning

Criminal investigations, congressional investigations, appellate opinions, reports by government agencies (e.g. CBO), news stories, the judging of competitions, audits, clinical trials, forensic analyses, scientific experiments, research polls, fact-checks, autopsies, arbitrations, attorneys’ closing arguments, editorials, op-eds, columns, debater’s speeches, mathematical proofs, legal motions, criminal and civil trials

Canons of Rationality
Proving Bias and the Absence of Bias
  • Proving Process/Product Bias
    • It’s easy to make a claim of bias. It’s much more difficult to prove it.
    • For example, is the New York Times politically biased?
    • Its editorials obviously take a side, reflecting the editorial slant of the paper. But taking a side does not by itself prove bias, as we’ll see
    • The relevant question is whether the paper’s news reporting is biased, because newspapers are supposed to maintain journalistic rules of objectivity and fairness. And they’re supposed to maintain a Chinese Wall between the news division and opinion writers.  In fact, sometimes news reports contradict opinion articles.
    • If a person claims that the New York Times’ news reporting is biased, he has the burden of proof.  He/she needs to show two things:
      • The Times’ news reporting violates the canons of rationality, including journalistic standards of objectivity and fairness.
      • The violations are the result of person bias
    • But showing these things is hard to do. See page on Is the News Media Biased?
  • Proving the Absence of Product/Process Bias
    • A process or product of reasoning is biased if
      • it violates the canons of rationality 
      • the violations are the result of person bias
    • Hence, a process/product adhering to the canons of rationality is not biased.
    • A process/product can be proved unbiased, therefore by establishing that it adheres to the canons of rationality.
  • Are Lawyers’ Closing Arguments Biased?
    • A Silly Conversation
      • Pete: Boy, the prosecutor’s closing argument was really biased.  
      • Rich: How so?
      • Pete: Because it was totally one-sided.
      • Rich: Duh? It was supposed to be
    • Is the prosecutor’s closing argument biased?
    • It’s biased if it violates the canons of rationality because of person bias.
    • But it’s false that the prosecutor’s closing argument is biased merely because it takes a side, since it may adhere to the canons of rationality.
  • Are Editorials, Op-eds, and Columns Biased?
    • Some yes, some no.
    • Kobach’s Breitbart article is likely biased.
    • But an opinion piece that adheres to the canons of rationality is not biased.
    • Consider a New York Times editorial, which set forth the following argument against capital punishment
      • Death is the only final and irreversible criminal punishment. As  DNA exonerations vividly show, humans and their governments are fallible. Prudent humility dictates that fallible people refrain from inflicting irreversible punishments.
    • Reconstructed, the argument is:
      • Fallible governments should refrain from inflicting irreversible punishments
      • Capital punishment is an irreversible punishment.
      • All governments are fallible.
      • Therefore, governments should refrain from inflicting capital punishment
    • The Times’ argument is deductively valid and its premises are at least plausible. It thus appears to abide by the canons of rationality.  If so, it’s not biased.
    • Like closing arguments, it’s false that editorials are biased merely because they take sides.
  • Allsides measures the perceived political perspective of news media rated on a left-right continuum.
  • A news paper’s political perspective is defined by its standards and value judgments.
  • Example:
    • Home page of news websites differ in layout and content
    • Every newspaper must decide what to print and how much coverage to provide.  That’s a value judgment, a judgment about what’s newsworthy and how newsworthy.
  • Newspapers have different standards and make different value judgments about:
    • Newsworthiness
    • Evidence and verification
    • Content of
      • News stories
      • Analyses
      • Opinions
    • Writing style
    • Ethics
  • Allsides in effect measures the standards and value judgments of a news source.
  • Bias applies not only to people and organizations but also to processes that result in conclusions, such as:
    • Investigations, judging of competitions, scientific experiments, forensic analyses, polls, academic studies
  • It’s useful to distinguish between
    • Person Bias
      • A person is biased if they have an outlook, perspective, opinion, or inclination that inhibits impartial judgment.
    • Process Bias
      • A process resulting in a conclusion is biased if it’s rendered unsound by person bias.
  • Example: Report Criticizes Comey but Finds No Bias in F.B.I. Decision on Clinton
    • “The Justice Department’s inspector general on Thursday painted a harsh portrait of the F.B.I. during the 2016 presidential election
    • The 500-page report criticized Mr. Comey for breaking with longstanding policy and publicly discussing an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server in handling classified information.
    • Nevertheless, the inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, did not challenge the conclusion that Mrs. Clinton should not be prosecuted.
    • “We found no evidence that the conclusions by department prosecutors were affected by bias or other improper considerations,” he wrote. “Rather, we concluded that they were based on the prosecutor’s assessment of facts, the law and past department practice.”
    • Mr. Horowitz repeatedly said he found no evidence that the F.B.I. rigged the outcome. “Our review did not find documentary or testimonial evidence directly connecting the political views these employees expressed in their text messages and instant messages to the specific investigative decisions we reviewed,” the report said.”

Stuff from Current Bias Page

Claim the New York Times has a liberal bias

  • Media bias rating sites rate the New York Times as having a left-leaning, left, or left-center bias.
  • The rating sites rate news outlets on a left-right spectrum.
    • “A political spectrum is a system to characterize and classify different political positions in relation to one another”
    • There are similar rating systems in other areas, e.g. the Martin-Quinn scores for Supreme Court justices.
      • “Martin-Quinn scores or M-Q scores are dynamic metrics used to gauge the ideology of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice based on their voting record.”
  • The two sites I’ve contacted do not regard such bias as a bad thing.
    • “While bias is often characterized as a bad thing (something that inhibits impartial judgment), we don’t necessarily share that view.”
      • Quote from an email from Julie Mastrine, Director of Marketing and Bias Ratings, Allsides
    • “Yes, I would say the left-right rating is more of a political perspective. It is not a bad thing at all.”
      • Quote from an email from Dave Van Zandt, Founder/Editor in Chief, Media Bias Fact Check LLC
  • The claim is true, taking “bias” in the sense of outlook.
  • The claim does not logically imply that the editorials, news coverage, and news reporting of the Times are biased in the way a congressional investigation might be biased.
    • Merely having an outlook or viewpoint does not imply bias.

Claim that the editorials, news coverage, and news reporting of the Times are biased in the way a biased investigation is biased

  • The claim implies the editorials, news coverage, and news reporting of the Times are biased by biased people, just as a biased investigation is biased by biased investigators.
  • I take up in order the questions whether
    • The Times editorials are biased
    • The news coverage is biased.
    • Individual news stories are biased
Are the Times Editorials Biased?

Is this NYT editorial against capital punishment biased, like a biased criminal investigation?

  • Here’s the argument why it’s not biased:
    • An investigation, an appellate opinion, or a medical examiner’s ruling on cause and manner of death are biased only if they are flawed.  Likewise for editorials.
    • But the editorial’s argument is deductively valid and plausible.
    • Therefore it’s not biased.
  • The argument on the other side is that the editorial is biased because it’s one-sided, presenting only the case against capital punishment.
  • The argument fails because editorials aren’t supposed to present both sides.  A prosecutor’s closing argument is certainly one-sided, presenting only the case against the defendant. But we wouldn’t call it biased, as we would, say, a one-sided investigation.
Is the Times News Coverage Biased?

Main Points

  • Media Slant
    • Media ratings of left-right bias or slant are based on the wording, amount of coverage, and placement of news stories.
    • The left-right bias or slant of a news source results in part from of the editor’s value judgments.
  • Reasoning Bias
    • Opinion pieces, analyses, and news reporting (especially investigative reporting) are subject to Reasoning Bias.

Media Bias: Media Slant

  • A news outlet has a left-right bias or media slant that reflects the outlet’s value judgments about the wording, amount of coverage, and placement of news stories.
  • Value judgments and the News
    • News is not simply stuff that happens. A lot of mundane things happen everyday that don’t, and shouldn’t, make it into print. News is newsworthy stuff that happens.
      • A story is newsworthy if it’s “of sufficient interest or importance to the public to warrant reporting in the media.” (ahdictionary.com). 
    • A newspaper has to decide what’s news. Deciding what’s news requires making a value judgment: judging what’s worthy of being reported.
    • Different newspapers make different value judgments about newsworthiness. Thus, newspapers differ in the stories they print and how much coverage they give to each, giving rise to left and right media slant.
  • What Drives the Political Slant of Daily Newspapers? Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro nber.org
    • Our analysis confirms an economically significant demand for news slanted toward one’s own political ideology. Firms respond strongly to consumer preferences, which account for roughly 20 percent of the variation in measured slant in our sample. By contrast, the identity of a newspaper’s owner explains far less of the variation in slant. We also present evidence on the role of pressure from incumbent politicians, tastes of reporters, and newspaper competition in determining slant.
  • A newspaper’s value judgments are not confined to newsworthiness. Newspapers have standards and policies that reflect value judgments about:
    • Verification and fact-checking
    • Sources
    • Content of
      • News stories
      • Analyses
      • Opinions
    • Taste and decency
    • Writing style
    • Ethics and conflicts of interest
    • Corrections and retractions

Media Bias: Reasoning Bias

  • A process or product of reasoning is biased if it is flawed due to a person’s bias.
  • Being products of reasoning, therefore, opinion pieces, analyses, and news reporting (especially investigative reporting) can be flawed and therefore can be biased.
  • A newspaper’s liberal or conservative slant does not imply their news stories are guilty of reasoning bias.

Allsides

Founded 2012

Allsides Media Bias Chart

allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart

Email Exchange with Allsides
  • My email to allsides.com, March 24, 2022
    • As a philosopher I was surprised at your blanket assertion that everyone is biased.
    • If you mean only that everyone has an outlook or inclination, your claim is true but uninteresting.
    • If you mean that everyone has an outlook or inclination that inhibits impartial judgment, your claim needs evidence.
    • Do you mean to assert the latter claim and, if so, what research supports the claim?
    • Thanks.
  • Response from Julie Mastrine, Director of Marketing and Bias Ratings, March 25, 2022
    • We mean the former claim — everyone has an outlook or inclination. We write at length about our thoughts on bias here. 
    • While bias is often characterized as a bad thing (something that inhibits impartial judgment), we don’t necessarily share that view. While that can certainly be the case, our position as a company is that it’s okay to have a bias, as long as we make bias transparent and get multiple perspectives.
    • Minimizing bias can be a worthy goal for journalists, and AllSides consults with journalists to help them do that. But it’s probably impossible to eliminate bias entirely — and that’s okay. The simple fact that journalists are limited in time, resources, and space means they’ll have to privilege one piece of information, story, or point of view over another sometimes. It’s also okay to have explicitly conservative-biased or liberal-biased media, as long as it is transparent. AllSides exists in part to make those biases transparent.
    • Hope that helps.
  • My follow-up email
    • Julie,
    • Thanks for your kind reply.
    • After reviewing your methodology, I’m inclined to believe:
      • Your methodology (of editorial review, blinded surveys, third party research, and initial Q&D reviews) could be used to rate the left-right leanings of things other than news media, e.g. people (politicians, celebrities), documentaries, and nonfiction books.
      • Your rating system is opinion-based rather than criteria-based. For example if you rated Supreme Court justices you would ask people (editorial reviewers, survey takers) their opinions rather than, for example, rating the justices based on their decisions per predefined criteria.
      • What your rating system measures is the perceived political perspectives of news media rated on a left-right continuum.
    • Am I right?
    • Thanks.
  • Julie’s reply:
    • Yes, that is correct. As far as criteria, yes, it’s largely opinion based, especially for our Blind surveys. But for Editorial Reviews, our panelists are guided by the Types of Media Bias guide that I wrote to help them know what to look for. So we are rating perceived political perspectives, but we do provide some objective criteria to panelists as to what different types of bias look like.
    • Thanks for your questions!
  • My final email:
    • Actually one last thing.  This is a point rather than a question.
    • In discussing dictionary definitions of bias in allsides.com/blog/what-media-bias you remark that:
      • “You may notice that in some dictionaries, a negative touch is added to definitions of bias.”
    • Which got me thinking about the use of especially in definitions, such as:
      • A preference or an inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment. 
    • I found the answer at merriam-webster.com/help/explanatory-notes/dict-definitions.
      • “The sense divider especially is used to introduce the most common meaning subsumed in the more general preceding definition.”
    • So for the definition “a preference or an inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment”:
      • The most common meaning is:
        •  A preference or an inclination that inhibits impartial judgment. 
      • The less common, more general meaning is:
        •  A preference or an inclination

Ad Fontes Media

Founded 2018

  • Ad Fontes Media rates the reliability as well as the bias of news sources.
    • Static Media Bias Chart
      • Rates bias on the horizontal axis and reliability on the vertical axis.
    • Interactive Media Bias Chart
      • Rates both websites (icons) and articles (points)
      • Also rates TV and podcasts.
      • Rates bias on the horizontal axis from -42 to +42 and reliability on the vertical axis from 0 to 64.
      • Vertical Axis Categories
        • Original Fact Reporting
        • Fact Reporting
        • Complex Analysis of Mix of Analysis and Fact Reporting
        • Analysis or High Variation in Reliability
        • Opinion or High Variation in Reliability
        • Selective or Incomplete story / Unfair Persuasion / Propaganda
        • Contains misleading info
        • Contains inaccurate / fabricated info
      • Search tool enables you to drill down to particular articles and shows (but limited to 5 searches per day)
Static Media Bias Chart
Interactive Media Bias Chart

About Media Bias / Fact Check

Founded 2015

  • About Media Bias / Fact Check mediabiasfactcheck.com/about/
    • Founded in 2015, Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC) is an independent website that has promoted awareness of media bias and misinformation by rating the bias, factual accuracy, and credibility of media sources, large and small. Media Bias/Fact Check relies on human evaluators to determine the bias of media sources and the level of overall factual reporting through a combination of objective measures and subjective analysis using our stated methodology.
Email Exchange with About Media Bias / Fact Check

My Email of Nov 21, 2022

Dear Editor,

I’m a philosopher (Phd Brown) currently working on the concept of bias.

Some instances of bias are certainly bad things, e.g. a judge’s biased ruling in a criminal trial — where the judge’s bias affects his ruling.

Is the same thing true of left-right editorial bias?

Consider your NY Times bias rating of Left-Center.

Does this mean that the opinions of the NYT editorial board members bias their editorials, like the judge’s bias affecting his ruling. That kind of bias would be a bad thing.

Or does your bias rating mean that a certain number of NYT editorial positions are classified as Left by your categorization scheme in mediabiasfactcheck.com/left-vs-right-bias-how-we-rate-the-bias-of-media-sources/. If so, it seems, a bias rating of Left-Center is not by itself a bad thing like the judge’s ruling. Indeed, it seems, the word “bias” in this case means “point of view.”

Thanks,

Jim Lamb

Reply Nov 22, 2022

Hi Jim,

Yes, I would say the left-right rating is more of a political perspective. It is not a bad thing at all. This is why we have the Factual Reporting and Credibility rating. Those are more important as they look at how factual the sources are. There are many left and right sources that are factual, but simply report from one-side. I think it is important for people to know what side they are on so they can look at counter viewpoints. BTW, I love philosophy, especially the areas of critical thinking and valid arguments. We try to use this when reviewing sources. 

Sincerely,

Dave

Dave Van Zandt
Founder/Editor in Chief
Media Bias Fact Check LLC

Issue: Is the news media politically biased?

Complications
  • Different senses and kinds of bias
    • Person Bias vs Reasoning Bias
    • Inclining Bias vs Inhibiting Bias
  • Distinction between one-sidedness and bias
  • Editorial slant
  • Newsworthiness and value judgments
  • Different kinds of articles: news reporting, analysis, opinion pieces
Graphic
Arguments that news media is politically biased
Editorials express a partisan point of view
  • A paper’s Editorial Point of View, or Editorial Slant, is the official opinion of the paper, set forth in its editorials. 
  • First Objection
    • A process or product of reasoning is biased only if it violates the canons of rationality because of person bias.
    • Like a lawyer’s closing argument, an editorial may be one-sided but perfectly rational, in which case it’s not biased. 
    • Therefore, the fact that a paper’s editorials take a political stand does not logically imply they’re biased.
    • This NY Times editorial presents a valid deductive argument that shows no sign of bias:
  • Second Objection
    • A paper’s editorial point of view doesn’t mean its news reporting is biased.  Reputable newspapers have strict policies on the separation of news and opinion.
      • Washington Post Policies and Standards
        • “The separation of news columns from the editorial pages is solemn and complete. This separation is intended to serve the reader, who is entitled to the facts in the news columns and to opinions on the editorial and “op-ed” pages.”
  • Kinds of Articles in the News Media
    • News Reports report newsworthy events
    • Feature Articles explore news stories in more depth or cover related topics.
      • News Analysis, Fact-Checks, Timeline, Background, Text of Documents, Opinion Polls, Videos, Photos, Graphics, Interviews, Personality Profiles, Historical Parallels, Maps, Expert Opinion, Primer, Explainer, Retrospective, Follow-up
    • Opinion Pieces set forth opinions and arguments, make value judgments and normative statements
      • Editorials: official opinion of the newspaper, written by the editorial board.  Editorials set forth the newspaper’s point of view.
      • Op-Eds and Columns: written by regular and guest columnists
      • Letters to the Editor: letters written by the general public.
Journalists tend to be liberal and can’t help slanting their reporting

A Pew Research Poll found that reporters are more liberal than the population at large

  • Objection
    • A person’s point of view doesn’t mean he’s incapable of being impartial in conducting an investigation. 
    • People can, and do, overcome their biases.
Partisan-leaning editorial pages are correlated with the amount of news coverage of scandals
  • Newspaper Coverage of Political Scandals, published in The Journal of Politics
    • journalistsresource.org/studies/society/news-media/news-bias-political-scandals
      • Partisan-leaning editorial pages are strongly correlated with biases in the amount of reportorial coverage of scandals. Democratic-leaning newspapers devote significantly more attention to scandals involving Republican politicians than scandals involving Democrats, and Republican-leaning newspapers do the opposite. This apparent bias holds for scandals both local and national in origin.
      • On average, a news organization with a higher degree of editorial endorsements for one political party will devote 26% more reportorial news coverage to a scandal involving a member of the opposite party.
  • Objections
    • A paper may devote a large amount of coverage to a scandal because of its newsworthiness rather than its editorial point of view, e.g. The Washington Post’s coverage of the Watergate Scandal
    • Correlation doesn’t prove causation
      • A and B’s being correlated proves neither that A causes B nor that B causes A
The tone of news coverage during Trump’s presidency was anti-Trump
  • News Coverage of Donald Trump’s First 100 Days
  • The tone of a news article is judged from the perspective of the subject. Negative stories include stories where the subject is criticized directly or where an event, trend, or development reflects unfavorably on the subject.
  • Second Objection: A negative headline may be more objective than a neutral headline.
    • Headlines for Same Story (WaPo)
      • Fox News: Trump tells Congressional leaders 3-5 million ‘illegals’ cost him popular vote
      • Las Vegas Review-Journal: Trump insists voter fraud cost him popular vote
      • New York Times: Trump repeats lie about popular vote in meeting with lawmakers
      • Wall Street Journal: Donald Trump repeats unsupported claim that voter fraud skewed election tally
      • Washington Post: Without evidence, Trump tells lawmakers 3 million to 5 million illegal ballots cost him the popular vote
      • Politico: Trump repeats debunked voter fraud claim at meeting with Hill leaders
      • ABC News: Trump repeats unsubstantiated claim about voter fraud during election
      • CNN: Trump talks replacing Obamacare, reiterates unsubstantiated voter fraud claims
      • USA Today: Trump revives false claim that illegal ballots cost him popular vote
      • Slate: Trump, again, falsely claims he lost the popular vote because of millions of fraudulent votes
      • New York Daily News: President Trump still pushing unconfirmed claims that voter fraud cost him the popular vote
      • Business Insider: Trump repeats debunked claim that voter fraud caused him to lose popular vote to Hillary Clinton
      • New York Post: Donald Trump brings up bogus voter fraud claims — again
      • Associated Press: Trump wrongly blames fraud for loss of popular vote
Polls indicate that people believe the news media is biased
  • Bias Perceived in News Coverage, February 2012
  • Six in 10 in US See Partisan Bias in News Media, April 2017
  • Voters Say Media Still Anti-Trump, January 2017
  • Objection
    • According to the Gallup poll, most Americans say the media is “often inaccurate.”  Since there’s no evidence for this claim, the belief that the media is biased may also have no basis in fact.  The key question is not how many people believe the media is biased, but  why they believe the media is biased.  If they have good reasons, what are they?
Arguments news media is not politically biased
If news articles were reasoning-biased they would be logically and epistemically flawed.

If news articles were reasoning-biased they would be logically and epistemically flawed, making false or unsupported claims, cherry-picking the evidence, distorting the facts, drawing unwarranted conclusions, and so on.  There’s no evidence that news articles are in deficient in this way.

A newspaper’s editorial slant exhibits bias only in the inclining sense.
  • A newspaper has to decide what’s news. That decision is a value judgment: judging what’s newsworthy.
  • Different newspapers make different judgments about worthy of being reported. The result is differences in the stories they print and how much coverage they give to each, giving rise to left and right slant.
  • A newspaper’s editorial slant exhibits bias only in the inclining sense.
  • Its slant does not imply that its news reporting, opinion pieces, and analyses are guilty of reasoning bias.
Reputable newspapers maintain journalistic standards of objectivity and fairness

Reputable newspapers maintain journalistic standards of objectivity and fairness, keeping a Chinese Wall between news reporting and the editorial page

Conclusions
  • The matter is subtle and complex
  • The burden of proof is on those who claim media bias.
  • The arguments considered fail to establish the news media is politically biased.
  • Reasoning bias is hard to prove since it requires showing that
    • the process violates the canons of rationality,
    • any logical flaws in the process result from person bias rather than from sloppy reasoning.