Is There Bias In The Media?

By Tom Remington

We hear this claim everyday, “The media are biased!” Well of course they are! Why deny it? I would have to consider myself a part of the new media and I can honestly say I am biased, although I would like to say………………….ah, never mind. I’m biased. We also hear everyday that it is the responsibility of the media to present facts in a non-partisan way covering all angles and sides of an issue. Is this true? Is it their responsibility? Is it mine? Personally, I think it’s your responsibility to search for the truth. The way things are progressing in our society you better learn how to do that quickly because especially with the “new media” it is becoming more and more slanted. Readers seem more interested in finding opinions that suit their ideals that facts and truth.

Let’s take gun control as an example of media bias. Gun control stems from our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. I think it intelligent to say that if all of us were to go back and study history, including the Federalist Papers, we could quite easily determine the intent of every article of the Constitution but we don’t because we don’t want to know. We are more interested in our ideals and therein lies one of the problems.

Was there ever a day when media bias didn’t exist? Not really, if you apply most anyone’s definition of bias but I do think that our news sources, including journalists and bloggers, have become more emboldened and perhaps brazen when it comes to telling their stories and getting their “messages” across.

The other day the Culture and Media Institute released a report called, “The Media Assault on the Second Amendment” (pdf). The basis of the report was about how the U.S. media and more precisely the major newspaper and television media covered gun violence from January 1, 2007 through July 31, 2007.

If it is the responsibility of ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times, etc. to make sure that their readers and viewers get all the right information covering all aspects of an issue, they didn’t do a very good job during this time span. Essentially, according to CMI, the media coverage was an assault on the Second Amendment. Let’s face it. When a reporter claims that the 32 victims of Virginia Tech died because we have a right to keep and bear arms, it is safe to say it is an assault on the Second Amendment.

The time period of January 1st through the end of July encompassed some high profile stories including the judge’s decision on Parker vs. District Columbia, declaring that the ban on guns was unconstitutional. It not only involved the Virginia Tech shootings but also the well covered debate on increased violence in cities like Philadelphia.

Granted this time period involved quite a bit of gun violence but how did the media, who some say are supposed to present facts and cover all angles, handle this coverage? The CMI report states that during this period a minimum of 650 stories on gun-violent crime ran on ABC, CBS and NBC alone. During that same time, two stories ran about guns being used in self defense. For those who might be wondering, as I was, according to a survey in 1997 by the Journal of Criminal Law, more than 2.5 million people use a gun in self defense each year.

Do media outlets not report this because they don’t know, don’t care or are they attempting to promote their ideals on us? That’s what you’ll have to decide.

Wouldn’t it be responsible while reporting that the Miami Chief of Police said, ““[T]here’s been no national effort to deal with this — with the guns and the availability of guns, and any reasonable measures that have been advocated have been defeated by Congress.”, to also report this?

A 2005 survey by the National Association of Chiefs of Police found that 93.6 percent of chiefs and sheriffs support “civilian gun ownership rights,” and 63.1 percent claimed that concealed-weapons permits reduce violent crime.

Statements made by reporters can do more harm than any good when those statement are hand selected. It is easy to pick and choose findings especially when they fit the ideals of the person reporting it. We are all guilty of this to some degree. For instance, and I have been guilty of this, I could report, as has been done many times before, that countries like New Zealand, which has very limited controls on guns, boasts one of the smallest crime rates in the world. That would suit my argument well. I could also report that in South Africa, where gun ownership is pretty much banned by anyone, crime rate is one of the highest. Were I to be advocating for gun control, I could site statistics out Great Britain that indicate gun violence is down since they clamped down on gun ownership.

Wouldn’t it be just as responsible to report that studies like a 2004 report, Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review, shows that there are far too many cultural and socials aspects within each country, state, city, etc., that directly affect violence and in this case gun violence. It’s simply not just a matter of whether guns exist or not.

Our own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded a study in October of 2003 called, “First Reports Evaluating the Effectiveness of Strategies for Preventing Violence: Firearms Laws“. After the study of how the presence or absence of guns in our society affected us, this is what they concluded.

The Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes.

The bottom line is what drives newspapers and television news. You have to have viewers/readers in order to sell advertising. Without advertising dollars, you’re out of business, so media finds themselves writing to sell more than writing to be the responsible stewards some believe we should be.

So, I’m doing what I tell others not to do and I’m putting the responsibility back on to you as a reader to educate yourself completely on issues that matter to you.

Tom Remington