Most mainstream media sources make a big deal about being "unbiased", but none of them succeed, and it's to the point where I think it's time we all admitted that objectivity is an unreasonable goal. Instead of feigning objectivity, journalists should just be honest about their personal biases and allow their audience to take them into account.
It's possible to be biased and still be honest, but it's impossible to be honest while pretending to be unbiased. I don't doubt that many/most in the media try to be objective, but it's clear from public opinion polls that despite their efforts they're failing miserably. One thing I like about bloggers is that we generally admit our biases for the sake of honesty; we do our best to get our facts right, plus we disclose our prejudices so that our readers can factor them in. Everyone who reads this blog knows that I'm a Christian and a Republican, and I'm sure you can see the influence of those two facts (as well as others) on everything I write.
The problem with the mainstream media is that they've built their reputations on the idea that they're objective. Sure, polls show that most Americans know that most journalists are incredibly biased (just like everyone else), but journalists have to maintain the delusion of objectivity because they use that facade to inject their opinions into the public debate. Without the illusion of objectivity, most of the opinions of the leftist media would hardly be worthy of discussion by rational human beings. (See, I'm biased.)
Add FNC into your list of media outlets that claim to be unbiased with their "fair and balanced" BS.
While FNC may be more to the conservative side does that truly mean that their news is "BS" in relation to the facts as Mark has stated. Their label of "fair and balanced" has been to at least report a story from a right lean as opposed to far left. Does that make it BS or is it just a differing perspective on the same story?
I'm not saying FNC's news is "BS". I'm saying that they're just as disingenuous about slant and bias as any other news network.
The best advice for keeping bias and slant in check is to mix up what you read, watch, and listen to. Don't get all your news from one source. Watch FNC, listen to NPR, read the Wall Street Journal's editorial section, watch CNN.
Mark: I think it's pretty obvious that the "fair and balanced" thing is very tongue-in-cheek.
They don't communicate that to the audience. I think their higher ratings are a direct result of the big lie they've successfully brainwashed into their viewers; that Fox News Channel is fair and balanced.
That "big lie" you refer to is your bias showing. Just because they ask hard questions to counter the crap the left is spewing doesn't mean it is biased. It just means they (left) don't like getting caught in their own contradictions and lunacy. There was a study done recently of all the news media and their bias and even Fox didn't score very far right, they were very middle. CNN was left of middle and then the MSM was far left in reporting. That report was done either by Businessweek or the Economist and also blogged somewhere, although I can't remember where.
You've given us a lot of sources for bias: your own, the study, and the organization that did the study.
Don't call on other people's bias without acknowledging your own.. and that of the organizations you use in your argument.
Mark: Uh, I have acknowledged my bias, and yes, of course FNC is biased. But which way? 80% of donations by FNC employees went to Democrats in 2004. I think 6Kings is referring to the study that found Drudge to be the most unbiased news source, surprisingly to everyone.
MW: I wasn't saying you hadn't disclosed your bias... I'm saying that 6Kings didn't nor did he/she disclose the bias of the study or of the people/organization that did the study.
The report is in Businessweek (free register to get the article) Dated June 14th, 2004 titled "The Liberal Media: It's No Myth" and it is reporting based on a continuing study called Measure of Media Bias, by Tim Groseclose of the University of California at Los Angeles and Jeff Milyo of the University of Chicago, presented last March at Stanford University's Workshop on the Media & Economic Performance. It is an interesting read.
Here's a link, but it's not the full study: "The Liberal Media: It's No Myth".
Tongue-in-cheek? Serious news outlets don't go around being tongue-in-cheek when it comes to things like that. It's their motto, among the first things they present to readers. Realistically, the "F&B" label is most likely an attempt to establish brand identity, more than anything else. They could use the same label if they were liberal, centrist, radically fascist, whatever. (And if it really IS tongue-in-cheek, that implies that they're consciously violating it, because it's really just a gag.)
All statements made by humans are biased; if not in their content, then in what they omit, either consciously or otherwise. I don't think anyone sane can argue that point. What a responsible citizen does is get news from multiple independent sources, and then try to collate their own worldview out of the information they're given. Wanting journalists (who mostly have a profit motive) to be honest about their biases is great, but it's not going to happen. In fact all it might serve to do is make people more likely to only read people whose biases explicitly agree with their own, which certainly isn't healthy for rational discourse.