J201Lecture: Evaluating journalism for “bias”Recent charges of “liberal bias” have a long history•Spiro Agnew’s “nattering nabobs of negativity”•Richard Nixon cuts funding to “elitist” PBS•array of different activist groups, from the “moral majority” to “religious right” to “Christian conservatives” during the Reagan years•“culture wars” during Clinton yearsOrganizations which argue that the media have a “liberal bias”•Media Research Center (www.mediaresearch.org)•Accuracy in Media (www.aim.org)•Citizens Coalition for Responsible Media (www.fairpress.org)Recent charges of “conservative bias” also have a long history•Government lies from Vietnam and Watergate •Conservative think tanks sponsoring campus news•FCC abandons the “Fairness Doctrine” in 1980s•Increasing conglomeration and concentration of media through the 1990sOrganizations which argue that the media have a “conservative bias”•Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (www.fair.org)•Media Transparency (mediatransparency.org)•Project Censored (www.projectcensored.org)But “liberal bias” vs. “conservative bias” is the wrong argument to have•We conflate “liberal” with “Democrat” and “conservative” with “Republican”•Many beliefs, like religion or environmentalism, defy categorization as either “liberal” or “conservative”•We ignore the variations like “fiscally conservative but socially liberal” •Most people, when asked, say they are “moderate”!•Terms “liberal” and “conservative” are themselves biased (and change dramatically over time)results in our class•political compass: 81% identified as “left, libertarian,” and 7% as “right, authoritarian”•voting choice: 70% voted for Kerry, 30% for BushWhat we should be asking:•How do we define “good journalism”?•What factors contribute to the quality of journalism?•What should you do when you find “bad journalism”?What should you do when you find “bad” journalism?•Consider scale: one article? one journalist? one newspaper? one media company? or all media?•Consider history: a pattern, or an isolated incident?•Consider intent: was mistake accidental? avoidable?•Consider effects: who stands to gain from mistake?•Consider yourself: do you harbor any
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