[TTBRAHWTMG]

Originally Posted by HardScienceFan

Uhhm,my humble opinion:news is just that: news.It shouldn't have 'appeal'.
I am trying to find out if there is possible bias in the gathering of news,the editorial treatment of it,the broadcasting and presentation of it,the treatment of possible feedback on the news,e.g. of people pointing out inaccuracies,outright falsehood,editorial prejudice,etc.To me it's fascinating that everybody is reasoning from a Western perspective,I've never proceeded from this Western bias.Remember,there are people living in Zimbabwe,Russia,China,Iran......You think the media are all free over there?
true journalism should be financially independent,pluriform,with no de facto or de jure censorship,possibly only bound by the limits of good taste,but then again,what is 'good taste'?

Flow and control of information is one of my biggest areas of interest.

The press is as free as is achievable here. Any of the major media outlets can generate whatever story they like tomorrow. You can go out tomorrow with your own money and start your own little newspaper and write whatever you want. This assumes, of course, both the major media outlet and you: stay within “the limits of good taste”, in other words, your country’s equivalent of the Canadian Standards Act; that you don’t encroach upon a private citizen’s rights; and that the major outlets follow basic ethical codes of conduct. These codes of conduct almost always include the requirement of truth, the striving for objectivity, the citation of sources, seperation between factorial and editorials, etc.

The “limits of good taste” are already defined. Some of these are critical in that they protect the rights of citizens, some because they reinforce the minimum standard of decency for a community; many others are fluffy ridiculousness that could be discarded. We could debate each limit by reviewing the applicable Standards Act if you wish. We, in the form of our chosen lawmakers, define what that code is.

How do you achieve financial independence though? What do you mean by this? Independence of the press, by definition, requires that it not be controlled or owned by the government. Once you have private ownership you have stakeholders. Once you have stakeholders you have bias. There is no avoiding this inevitability. The core of the problem is that for you to be ABLE to research the articles for your paper, to write your paper, to generate copies of it, and to distribute them, all of these things are going to cost resources. To cover those expenses, you are going to need an output that generates revenue, or give up your independence to the state. To generate that revenue you are going to have to find someone that wants to buy your output. You are going to have to find an appeal to that potential customer. You can't get around it. This works both at the individual and corporate level. The individual reporter, with ethical code in hand, will still gravitate to "the great story", the one that they think will appeal to the reader or viewer. They may be trying to invoke different appeals in different readers through various vehicles such as shock value, star power, appeal to special interest group, appeal to their own personal interest, appeal to a sense of righteousness, or in rarer cases even pursuit of a reputation for objectivity.

In the western system, for every major media outlet there are at least a dozen media “watch dog” agencies. These agencies hail from both ends of the political spectrum; from various religious groups; various ethnic groups; and from numerous different “special interest groups”. These groups review every word produced and are quick to raise alarm bells if they see or read anything that portrays their interests in a negative light. Pick any major western media outlet and a give me a day, and I will give you links to numerous “watch dog sights”, or interest groups’ internal blogs. The opportunity for outright falsehoods to go completely undetected is virtually impossible in this day and age. It actually sounds like this is what you are proposing actually...the creation of a "watch dog" group.

Inaccuracies do happen more often than desirable, usually due to sloppy reporting, lack of fact verification, even occasional gross bias, etc. These are almost always picked up by one of these agencies. In some cases a public retraction is required. In more severe cases there are laws, fines. In extreme cases of violation of a private citizen’s rights there can be tort law brought into play.

I don’t understand your offence at a western media bias. In my opinion the western media system works better than any other in existence today, and allows for the greatest independence of the media source. If you disagree, what existing system can you point to that has greater independence for the media, or any of the other goals you wish to achieve? If your idea of a better system doesn’t exist today, how does it work in practicality, and in what ways does it differ from a reference that is in existence today?

If you really want to focus in on the inevitable biases that are present so that you can discern your own opinion…pick a news story and multi source it and compare. If your interest is in internal biases...you’re from Holland…how many different papers are available at your store or newsstand that are not international? Pick a story of national importance and source each of those papers, or their internet extensions if they exist (cheaper and faster). Compare how they report on each of those stories. You will soon see the biases emerge. If you are talking a global issue, and are interested in bias at that level…choose a world event and source national online news sources from several western countries and compare those…the national biases will emerge…and then throw in Al Jazeera or a relevant English media outlet from the region in question…for example that Kenyan paper I was talking about…and review how the reporting on the incident compare. The biases will emerge.

I went through this process just last night, on a story regarding Turkey and a group of between 200,000 and 300,000 secularists who were protesting the expected rise of a new Islamic government. The number of protesters varied depending on which source you want to believe. There was remarkable little difference in the actual facts other then that 'number present' discrepancy. The cited quotes were the same in all of the articles including Al Jazeera, the immediately relevant background details of the history and current political environment was pretty much all the same…but the differences in the optional background information, the filler, the connotation, the flavour, or the bias were very evident and interesting. Each nation's reporting had differences in these qualitative choices. They were small, yet significant differences. Once you actually have these biases visible right in front of you, you can walk away pretty confident in your facts stripped of the various biases, and form your own opinion based on those facts (of course, those facts have now been subjected to your own bias...your never going to get away from bias, we are human beings).

As far as non-western countries, there are many with little freedom of press, many more again that pay lip service to it. I have recently read a first person account written by a Kenyan reporter, and he describes what it has been like to “freely” report the news over the course of each of the past three regimes. I can give you a link if you’d like. It is the Western media outlets and and Western countries that work to change the conditions for journalists in those restricted countries, freedom of the press being one of the fundamental freedoms that western society believe individuals should be allowed access to. The problem is the lack of voice for interest groups to express THEIR bias. Western countries attempt to affect that change with their foreign policy tools: they use the UN; direct government to government communication; control of the flow of non-humanitary financial aid; political pressure; restriction of trade; the veiled or even open threat of force; and in worst case scenarios the occasional use of force.

There is often SOME news coming out of virtually every nation, even those under these restricted conditions, mainly due to western foreign correspondents, and local individual efforts. Name a country that has no, or little freedom of press, and I’ll take you to links that show steps that western countries have taken to attempt to help them gain that freedom, to gain that expression of their bias. They have met with varying degrees of success over the years…in some cases there are no visible results…in some rare cases apparently even worsening the situation…but I can still find you evidence of the effort.

If you are interested in witnessing these biases...pick a few "world headlines" and we can collect stories from various news sources and compare them...the distinct flavour of each nation, and even each media outlet within each nation, will quickly become evident. If you want to take it a step further, we can try to gain insight into the cause of those biases after they are recognized by studying the source further.

No, the problem isn’t our current media system in the West, or the way that it is set up...the problem is in the way the collective of individual choices within our society choose to utilize that system. The system of Western media is not sick…we the consumers of it, are.


Added: Yikes...I wrote an essay!