Perceived Bias in the Media


• Bias defined • Who believes the media are biased? • External manipulation

• Internal agendas • Reporting fact vs.opinion • Journalists' self-appraisal

The public suspects that the points of view and biases of journalists influence what stories are covered and how they are covered.
While some journalists agree that particular people or groups sometimes get overly favorable (or unfavorable) coverage, they are less likely to perceive a problem of bias in newspapers.

Measuring perceived bias is a complex problem, because bias, itself, is a multi-dimensional and complex issue. Because perceived bias is central to any investigation of journalistic credibility, this research avoided relying on a singular "poll-like" question. Instead, the questionnaire asked, "Do you think the media are biased?" in a number of different ways, thereby reducing the chances that any one word or expression could influence the answers. No matter how the question was asked, the headlines were disturbingly consistent.

·  78 percent of U.S. adults agree with the assessment that there is bias in the news media.

·  58 percent believe that the public's dissatisfaction with the media is justified - as opposed to 29 percent who say the press is "an easy target for deeper problems in our society."

·  78 percent believe that powerful people can get stories into the paper - or keep them out.

·  50 percent believe there are particular people or groups that get a "special break" in news coverage, and 45 percent believe that others "don't get a fair shake."

·  77 percent believe newspapers pay lots more attention to stories that support their own point of view.

Among the majority of the public that believes the news media are biased, 42 percent see TV as the worst offender; 23 percent say that newspapers are the most biased news medium.

More than two-thirds of adults say their perception of bias in newspapers does not represent a "major obstacle" to being able to trust newspapers as a source of news - perhaps because they believe they've built sufficient filtering mechanisms to identify and neutralize it when they think they see it.

More than two-thirds of adults say their perception of bias in newspapers does not represent a "major obstacle" to being able to trust newspapers as a source of news

The public has constructed a rationale for these behaviors. Most believe the motive is commercial - to sell more newspapers or, in the case of television, to get higher ratings.

There are some notable differences between the public and journalists in these basic attitudes about bias in the news media, including the facts that:

·  While 93 percent of average Americans express a desire to get their news "straight up," believing that "the major job of newspapers is to get the facts right, not to tell me how to interpret those news events," only 68 percent of journalists believe in this mission.

·  Seventy-nine percent of the American public believes that "it's pretty easy for special interest groups to manipulate the press," vs. 55 percent of journalists.

The public believes that in addition to outside pressures to "spin or spike" a story, there are internal axes that get ground, and attitudinal mindsets in newsrooms that could inject bias into the news report.

Journalists were asked what they, personally, believed to be the major reason behind the public's "loss of faith" in the press, and slightly over three-quarters provided some response to this open-ended question. The highest percentage (48 percent) suggested that blame lies at the journalists' doors - citing "sensationalism," "inaccuracies," "over-reporting on public figures' private lives" and "pack reporting" as explanations.

Journalists see many more shades of gray than do average Americans when it comes to press credibility. Only 17 percent of journalists (20 percent of managing editors and assistant managing editors) believe that public dissatisfaction with the press is justified. And 33 percent (about the same proportion as in the public) believe the press is "an easy target." The highest percentage of journalists - 49 percent - say "it depends.".

Further, although the public is willing to stipulate that commercial motives (selling more papers, getting higher ratings) can explain a lot of the sins and excesses they see in both newspapers and television news, most journalists look elsewhere for reasons for public dissatisfaction

Bias defined

The Public Perspective: Although there's consistency and near unanimity in the public's view that there's a problem with bias in the news media, there are (at least) three operational interpretations of what bias actually is

·  30 percent of adults see bias as "not being open-minded and neutral about the facts."

·  29 percent say that it's "having an agenda, and shaping the news report to fit it."

·  29 percent believe that it's "favoritism to a particular social or political group."

·  8 percent say bias in the news media is "all of these."

The Newsroom Perspective: One business writer at a large daily noted, "We are schizophrenic, swinging between poorly conceived attempts to 'please' readers and self-importance that leads to a failure to connect with them."

Thirty-two percent of journalists pointed to other media - specifically TV and tabloids - as the culprits in the public's loss of confidence in press credibility. Many added illustrative comments:

·  "... the antics of TV reporters reflect poorly on all reporters and attacking the media has proven to be politically popular."

·  "The TV image of journalists - either pretty boy airheads or vicious bottom feeders - paints all of us with a black brush."

·  "The image of newspapers is affected by something out of our control - television news, television magazines and television tabloid programs. The public considers the 'media' one big beast with universally low ethics and values."

·  "The problem with the public's perception of the press is that many people lump tabloids and sleaze TV in with legitimate news gathering organizations and call everything 'the media.' "

·  "I'm deeply concerned by the growing portion of the population that is apathetic and/or willing to allow TV to inform and instruct regarding politics and other matters of concern."

Less than 20 percent of journalists turned the tables and blamed the public for getting the wrong impression:

·  "Telling the truth and doing the right thing often angers people."

·  "I think the press is sometimes used as a scapegoat - the kill the messenger thing."

·  "We spend too much time worrying about our credibility."

·  "The public is obliged to do some editing of its own to find the best sources of information."

·  "People want their own prejudices confirmed and are annoyed when we tell them the facts."

The second open-ended question asked journalists to cite recent stories they thought had contributed to negative perceptions of newspaper credibility. More than 70 percent of the newsroom sample mentioned that the Clinton sex scandal had done the most harm, with coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial (39 percent) and Princess Diana (21 percent) receiving a high percentage of votes as well. A top editor at a large newspaper said he believes that harm to credibility is done by "any story in which the media basically tell the reader that the media is smart and the public is dumb."

It's encouraging to see that some journalists are as concerned as the public is. Some might argue that the 1997-1998 "season" was unique in that it was particularly rich with stories that were inherently sensational. Others might find in recent years of newspaper coverage examples of how the "serious" press has begun to reflect the entertainment industry's treatment of "news." For either argument, the Clinton scandal excels as an example of why the public thinks the press overplays sensational stories, of why they presume a commercial motive for news decisions, and why they feel the press is increasingly "out of touch" with readers. While average Americans were screaming "enough already" about the sheer volume of these stories, they saw newspapers publishing them on A-1 with jumps. While journalists argued about whether the Starr report was appropriate for a family newspaper, many readers saw it the next morning anyway.

Journalists were concerned about this dilemma, of course. As details of the Clinton scandal were released, the daily decisions of what (and how) to publish were hotly debated in newsrooms across the country, and as the nation moved toward and into the hearings to impeach the president, many editors held their noses but decided to run stories they judged to be of historic significance and import. Readers were not party to this reasoning, however, and made judgments based only on what they saw in the paper. Given that evidence, it's not surprising to see that 78 percent of the public believes that journalists actually enjoy reporting the personal failings of public figures.

Who believes the media are biased?

The Public Perspective: Because more than three-quarters of the public perceives bias in the news media, the demographic profile of Americans who believe this mirror the nation overall. The more interesting group, then, is the 17 percent of adults who disagree with the widely held belief that the media are biased. This group tends to be

·  Older.

·  Less well-educated.

·  Less likely to be working.

·  Living in households with lower incomes.

·  More likely to be Democrats.

With the exception of political affiliation, the demography of the 17 percent who don't see bias in the news media is distinctly downscale.

The behavior and perceptions of the 58 percent of adults who believe that charges of media bias are "justified" are directionally different from the 29 percent who think the media are simply an "easy target for deeper problems in our society". Those who accept the "easy target" explanation are much less likely to:

·  Find misleading headlines, mistakes in spelling and grammar, and factual errors in their paper more than once a week.

·  Believe that there are powerful external and internal influences that shape the news report.

·  See purposeful sensationalization in the news report.

·  Discuss media credibility with others (the most significant of these four findings).

Admittedly, some of these relationships might be self-validating. All, however, are substantial enough to suggest that once an individual begins to question newspaper credibility, he or she is far more likely to behave in a way that reinforces that belief rather than dispels it.

External manipulation

The Public Perspective: Seventy-eight percent of adults believe that powerful people or organizations can influence a newspaper to "spike or spin" a story. Asked what specific groups they thought could influence news decisions and set the news agenda, 63 percent of the public were able to volunteer an open-ended, "top-of-mind" answer. The majority cited politicians or government officials, big business and wealthy individuals. This is not an unreasonable layman's construction given the frequency with which people from these groups are quoted in the press. One focus group participant phrased it succinctly: "There was no explanation of why the story was important, and so I just assumed somebody wanted it there."

Public perceptions of bias in newspapers must also be understood in the context of how people evaluate the news media overall. While the majority of U.S. adults (61 percent) see tremendous strengths in a newspaper's ability to "really understand the issues that are important to a local community," significant proportions of the public are not very complimentary:

·  59 percent say newspapers are concerned mainly with making profits rather than serving the public interest.

·  56 percent feel that newspapers make biased (rather than objective) decisions about what news to publish.

·  50 percent believe newspapers allow advertisers' interests to influence news decisions.

·  41 percent believe newspaper coverage of groups that they might disagree with is unfair and unbalanced.

On these latter two points, some focus group participants were knowledgeable enough about newspapers to draw a line between the newsroom and the business office, best summed up by the comment that, "The people who are journalists are involved with the public interest, but the people who own newspapers want to make a profit. Journalists don't run the newspaper."

Given the high percentage of the public who believe that commercial interests - whether advertisers, the profit motive, or selling newspapers -can influence news judgment, this belief emerges as a major factor to the decline in public perceptions of newspaper credibility.

Alone, these kinds of bi-polar descriptors would be a blunt instrument with which to measure perceptions of newspapers. Their more potent use, however, is in being able to isolate meaningful differences between the views of various subgroups. In this case, it's clear that age makes the biggest difference in these perceptions, especially in three dimensions:

·  "Being more concerned with the public interest" rather than profits - 51 percent of 18-24 year olds believe that about newspapers, vs. only 27 percent of older adults.

·  "Respecting readers' intelligence" - 70 percent of younger adults and only 49 percent of older adults believed that about newspapers.

·  "Being more liberal politically" - 46 percent of younger vs. 66 percent of older adults.

Despite the fact that younger, less-experienced adults are more willing to stipulate a positive motive and behavior for daily newspapers, their perceptions must be considered in light of the fact that daily readership within this group is relatively low.

The Newsroom Perspective: During an ASNE Journalism Credibility Project think tank session, one editor wondered aloud whether the public's belief that outside forces shape the news agenda is because "we're more responsive to wealthy people because they know us and we're one of them, or because that's where the news is?"

An equally good question is whether or not it matters. The finding that 78 percent of the American public believes that certain individuals or groups (predominantly the powerful) can influence the news that's published - can "spin or spike" a story, remains an important underpinning of the credibility gap. One copy editor saw it this way: "I am amazed and gravely concerned that a paper as large as ours and in one of the top 10 cities in the country is so complacent about news gathering and so concerned with offending the movers and shakers in the community."