It’s a Biased World: Examining the Media

If you watch, read, or listen to the news, you are bound to come across what is known as media or political bias. Media bias is a term that describes a real or perceived bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media, in regards to which events will be reported and exactly how they are covered.<br>

Instead of focusing on the perspective of an individual journalist or article, media bias typically refers to an omnipresent or prevalent bias that disregards the standards of journalism. Journalism ethics and standards encompass principles of ethics and of good practice as applicable to the specific challenges faced by professional journalists describe journalism ethics and standards. Widely known to journalists as the “code of ethics,” these standards often appear in statements drafted by professional journalism associations, as well as individual print, broadcast, and online news organizations.<br>

Most existing standards of journalism share common elements, such as the principles of truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness, and public accountability in regards to the acquisition of newsworthy information and how it is reported to the public. Additionally, these code systems also include the principle known as the “limitation of harm,” which habitually withholds certain details from news reports, such as the names of minor children, crime victims’ names, or information that may harm someone’s reputation.<br>

While most journalists comply with these code systems, media bias is inevitable. Considering the world we live in, it is pretty much impossible to report everything that is occurring. Not to mention, there are limitations set forth in regards to media neutrality, which includes the inability of journalists to report all available stories and facts. In addition, there is the requirement that the selected facts be linked into a coherent narrative.<br>

Journalism is an honorable profession, and for the most part, journalists are just people trying to do the right thing. To many, bias is a bad word. But really, it is just a small word that identifies the combined influences of the entire context of a message being put out. As hard as we try to ignore it, human communication is known for taking place in a context, intermediately, and among those who are situated politically, economically, socially, and historically. This being said, bias does not suggest that a message is false or unfair. <br>

In some countries, government influence, including overt and covert censorship, biases the media. There are also market forces, such as ownership of the news source, audience preferences, staff selection, and pressure from advertisers that can result in biased presentations of news stories.<br>

There are several types of media bias, including commercial bias; temporal bias, visual bias; bad news bias; narrative bias, status quo bias, fairness bias, expediency bias, and glory bias.

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