Biased News

Even at the best of times, the media is never really unbiased on political topics. As Tim Harford wrote back in 2010, about the British election:
“It was a typical election for the newspapers, each one setting out its political stall in its own style… But why do newspapers take strong political positions?... The obvious explanation is that proprietors use papers as political tools… An alternative view is that readers do not want a determinedly unbiased reporting of dry facts, but wish to be entertained and to have our biases confirmed.”
Could it be otherwise, wonders Harford:
“In a world full of left- and right-leaning customers, perhaps impartiality is a luxury a commercial newspaper can ill-afford.”
But outside of election time, the media did try to strike some sort of balance (How far they succeeded is another question). As Barrack Obama joked during one of his comedy routines at the White House:
“I admire [CNN's] commitment to covering all sides of a story...just in case one of them happens to be accurate.”

Fast forward to present day. CNN, like so many other Western media, has gone so overboard in its anti-Trump hysteria about every appointment, policy and tweet that it’s hard to watch/read any of them anymore. Alan Jacobs describes the current situation perfectly:
“Trump’s description of the major news media as his “opposition” strikes me as an essentially accurate description, and while on one hand I think he deserves all the opposition he gets, on the other hand I’d like newspapers, magazines, and even some television networks to be places where I can go to find out what’s actually happening in the world — rather than places to accumulate anti-Trump ammunition.”
And as Michael Kinsley wrote, all this may just be hardening Trump’s stance:
“There is also the argument that you help him by encouraging victimisation, the idea that the eastern media elite is out to get him.”

So if all mainstream media is biased, is there any way to get the facts? Yes, but it takes effort. Read/listen to both kinds of media. Balance the leftist-since-Trump CNN with a Russian channel (yes!) like Russia Today. A few examples would help:
1)     Relations between Trump and Russia:
CNN/Western media view: Russia has information on Trump (aka blackmail) + they hacked the elections to help Trump win; so Russia basically have him in their pocket. Hence Trump will be pro-Russia.
Russia Today view: The Democrats are sore losers; they blame Russia for Hillary’s loss. American politicians are so blinded by their hatred for Russia that they won’t even want their country to align with Russia on topics where their interests are the same. Like ISIS and terrorism.
2)    Germany’s continuous rants against Trump:
CNN/Western media view: Yes, Germany is right. Trump is evil.
Russia Today view: Typical imperialistic mindset: Europeans have a divine right to dictate other countries’ policies!

The next time you find yourself being swayed by how a TV channel presents or “analyzes” a topic, ask yourself these questions. Isn’t the media a profit seeking corporation too? Would they voice the opinion their viewers are likely to align with? Are all of them funded transparently? Are all of them ensuring their owners/anchors/editors have no political ties?

At least, a stock analyst has to declare his share-holdings when voicing his views… no such conditions apply to the news media, who happily peddle their bias and call it news or even worse, objective. The onus is on us to find alternate views and then come to our own conclusions. Yes, that’s hard but whining about the bias isn’t a solution…

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Student of the Year

Image
As a toddler, my daughter loved Alia Bhatt’s songs, esp. the ones from Student of the Year . (That movie did have many good songs and well-choreographed dances). Fast forward to present day, when she is 12 yo. She rarely watches Hindi movies now, but one of the few ones she likes of late, Raja aur Rani ki Prem Kahani has, yes, Alia Bhatt.   If I had any hopes that there was anything to be read in the name of her toddler-time favorite ( Student of the Year ), they have been dashed. Our conversations come exam time are perfectly captured by this photo and its caption: In fact, the pic below captures how she and I look at her answer sheets – me intently, she with an expression of “It’s over, so why are you even looking at it?”   Of late, we pull her leg and tell her that she isn’t showing any signs of academic prowess, she’d better find a rich guy to marry. Some time later, she showed us this meme on the Internet: “Me No Study, Me No Care Me Go Marry Millionaire If He Die
Read more

Why we Deceive Ourselves

In their book, The Elephant in the Brain , the authors describe this weird aspect of deception that we practice: deceiving ourselves! That is so weird: “If our minds contain maps of our worlds, what good comes from having an inaccurate version of these maps?” The Sigmund Freud school of thought treats self-deception as a defense mechanism, “a way for the ego to protect itself”. The mind seeks to protect itself from anxiety and other negative emotions. Many object to this reasoning: since accurate information is so critical to our survival, surely distorting information would be dangerous. Wouldn’t the goal of protecting our self-esteem have been better achieved by making the brain’s self-esteem mechanism stronger instead? The new school of thought explains self-deception as “primarily outward-facing, manipulative, and ultimately self-serving”. This is based on Thomas Schelling’s work on game theory: “In a variety of scenarios, limiting or sabotaging yourself is the winn
Read more

Handling of the Satyam Scam

The Satyam scam. How does that fit into Montek Singh Ahluwalia’s book on reforms in India, Backstage ? The reason is that, as both NASSCOM and the government of India felt: “(Satyam’s) collapse would create a great deal of disruption for clients worldwide and seriously damage India’s reputation as a reliable source of software services.”   Therefore, the government decided to work with the private sector to “organize a quick takeover by a reputable new buyer, who would quickly restart the company”. But that could not be done overnight. In the meantime, the new board would have to reach out to Satyam’s clients and “reassure them that the company would survive”.   For the new board to have credibility when it made that statement, it had to be staffed with people who understood the private sector, the IT sector in particular, and commanded respect and trust. Deepak Parikh from HDFC was made chairman, and other members of the board included a former NASSCOM chairman, CII member,
Read more