Is the Press Believable?

This morning I read this article by Dean Wright.  He cites the results of a new study by Pew Research which essentially says that popular belief in the media is at an all-time low right now.  His solution?  More transparency in the news reporting.

The study reveals not only that the U.S. public tends to view the news media in general with suspicion, but also that much of this suspicion is political - one organization will be viewed more favorably by one party and less favorably by the other.  Only 29% of Americans think the news reporters get the facts straight, and only 18% think they deal fairly with both sides.

Why do so many people view news reporters with suspicion?

I think the answer is actually quite simple:  we want something news reporters can't give us.

Think back on the history of news, or what little of it you might know.  News in this country began with ordinary people using printing presses to spread the word.  One of the most famous forefathers of America is Benjamin Franklin, who got his start in printing.  The job was simple:  figure out what the truth was, and spread the truth to other people.  There was no talk of political bias or unfair reporting, because the news was about the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Today, of course, we're much more modern and we have become enlightened.  We know now that nothing is ever as simple as "the truth."  We've seen the power of propaganda to change people's minds and convince a whole nation that something blatantly false is true.  And unlike those earlier times, the major media outlets today have become large corporations, which are devoted to making money, in addition to whatever truth they are trying to teach us.  We know these things.  And that makes the news suspect for bias.

And why not?  Since when was anything anyone said ever not biased?

Of course, all this makes a pretty big assumption:  that bias is bad.  For centuries man has wrestled with the notion of absolute truth, of objectivity, and he is finally just discovering that if there is any absolute truth out there, he certainly doesn't possess the tools required to find it.  We're only human; we're all biased by something.  Our personalities, our religious and political beliefs, our personal philosophies - our upbringing.  We each view things through variously colored sunglasses, and we each hold on to our notion that our glasses are the right ones.  Yet as much as we know this, we still hold to the thought that behind those glasses we wear, there is still some definite truth "somewhere out there" - that behind all the glasses we wear, we're all looking at the same object, after all.

Science, religion, and the media, have always tried to teach this notion of objectivity and absolute truth.  It's a nice notion.  It's a believable notion.  If we can't all agree on something, what hope is there for humanity to ever find peace?  And so we search for absolute truth, and if we can't find it, we assume it's because we weren't looking in the right place.  When we discover something is false, we blame the source - the science which made the false discovery, the religion which made the false claim, the media which reported the false facts.  We cling to the notion that there is still some objective, absolute truth; we were just looking in the wrong place that time, and now we've learned, we're smarter, we're better, and next time we'll look in the right place.

I think the reason we're so suspicious of the news today is that we're finally starting to realize that nothing is safe - everything you read or hear is just words, just language.  Whether or not there are objective facts being covered by the news is not the issue; the issue is whether or not the news is covering those facts objectively.  Of course they aren't; they can't!  Your news reporter is no less human than yourself.  The very words they choose to describe something are biased; the very sentences they speak are based on their own ideas, seen through their glasses.  It is this ultimate realization that worries us and makes us suspicious of the press.

Can we believe the news media?  I think the answer to that question is a little bit more complex than a simple "yes" or "no."  Ultimately, unless you want to be a paranoid freak, you have to believe some things.  And you can.  When you're told that Obama presided at a UN summit for nuclear disarmament, you can believe that Obama said the things he said, and perhaps even that he actually wants to get rid of nuclear weapons.  But you're smart enough to know not to believe it until we actually do get rid of nuclear weapons, for good.  When you see that there was a clinical trial for an AIDS vaccine with some limited success, you know that this might be good for the future of medicine but you're smart enough to know it doesn't mean that one of the most devastating human diseases in existence has been cured - yet.

Most of this type of news isn't the problem; it's political news that gives the most cause for concern about bias.  But is that really anything different from a news article that is optimistic about nuclear disarmament or an AIDS vaccine, even though those things are not yet real?  What is it about political news that makes it any less believable, or more prone to bias?  And what exactly is wrong with bias?

People are afraid of corruption in the government and in corporations like the news media, and rightly so - we've seen a lot of corruption, and if there's no apparent corruption now, it's probably because they're managing to keep it hidden.  There will no doubt be more corruption scandals in the future.  Nobody is perfect, after all, and when there's a lot of money and power on the line people are tempted.  These things can be combated to some degree by the news, but people need to stop viewing the news as the place to combat corruption.  The news is limited; it needs to maintain its pristine front.  It's up to We, The People to find these things, and fight them.  This is something we've known all along, but out of laziness we blame the news when we can't - or won't - do it ourselves.  Corruption will cease to exist when We, The People end it - and as long as we expect "them" to do it for us, it will never end.

You have to expect bias, because you're going to get it.  Instead of demanding that our news be "less biased," we need to recognize that everyone - even politicians, news reporters, and wealthy corporate CEOs - are humans.  Thinking, living, breathing, conscious human beings.  We tend to forget this - we abstract people as "Republicans" or "Democrats," "conservatives" or "liberals," "bad guys" or "good guys," "them" or "us."  And when we do that, we lose sight of humanity - of all people really just being people, in the end.  We forget that we might be no different from them, in their shoes.  We forget that we are just as free as they are - that ultimately, no matter how "unbiased" and "objective" they try to be, they will always say things the way they see them, and we may see them differently.  That's exactly what it means to be human, and news reporting is no different from two men having a conversation except that one of them is given special privileges.  As long as we fail to recognize the humanity in others, we make the same essential mistake that "they" - the politicians or news reporters - make.  As long as we all continue to make that mistake, the problems we complain about will never go away, for we are all too busy blaming each other to actually fix the problems themselves!

This might seem defeatist, or like a quitter's way out, because while not condoning the evils of the world it allows for them:  it recognizes that they will always exist.  Yet if it seems like a quitter's way out, it's the only way I can see to end the problems we face - the corruption people are so afraid of.  Only by recognizing that news reporters are human too, and recognizing that there is no such thing as "no bias" can we move on to the more important aspect of reporting:  the actual facts, whatever those might be behind the tinted glasses everyone sees them through.  And I believe it's no harder to see the actual facts in a political news article than in a news article about nuclear disarmament or an experimental AIDS vaccine.  It just takes a little common sense, and a willingness to put political beliefs aside to focus on what is actually happening.

Ultimately, it's up to us to interpret the news.  They may report the facts, but they will always be biased.  We will also always be biased.  We need to recognize this:  realize that the news is inherently biased, that there is no "unbiased news" and that we can recognize the facts in spite of this.  We're smart people; we can figure these things out.

Read your news; don't rely solely on the TV for news, because the TV is especially biased.  They have to make news exciting and sensational to put it on TV, but doing so may take away from the objectivity of the news.  You may watch TV, but do some reading too.  It's good for you.

Read from several different sources, not just one - especially if it's an article about a controversial topic.  By applying your reasoning to what you read, and comparing the biased news reports from several different reporters, you are more likely to be able to identify the true facts of the matter, rather than being stuck with the single, biased article of one reporter, from one organization, in one place.  Don't expect perfection, but expect reason in what you read.  This is how ignorance and uninformed-ness are combated; this is how Americans can get their news safely.  It's the only way.

I disagree with the essential premise that news reporting agencies can be expected to provide absolute, unbiased truth to us; I also disagree with the premise that we can't determine the basic facts of a matter for ourselves, even if a news source is biased.  We need to hold the news sources accountable; we also need to hold ourselves accountable.  If we are to argue a topic, we need to be informed about it first.  It does no good to pretend to know more about something than we do.

When you see that you are able to discern fact from opinion on your own, you realize that there is nothing bad about having opinions in the news.  It's actually necessary for reporters to have opinions - just as you can't read the news without yourself forming your own opinions about what you read.  When you see the necessity of bias, you realize that even though the news is imperfect and human, just like yourself, you can trust it to give you what you need to figure out the facts on your own.

And that is exactly the kind of news we need in the 21st century.