media bias update

So honest question today… no need to tell me… I’m encouraging honesty with self.

In the most recent election cycle — and on the days you tune into the news — do you tune into a majority of the following resources:

  • The Daily Mail
  • FOX News
  • National Review
  • New York Post 
  • Or Newsmax

If not the above — and again no need to be honest with anyone other than self — do you instead tune into a majority of these:

  • The Atlantic
  • CNN
  • MSNBC
  • The New Yorker
  • Or The New York Times

Let me first acknowledge that there are some very gifted writers and journalists from each of the above. I’ll admit, for example, that The Atlantic’s Caitlin Flanagan, FOX’s Dana Perino, National Review’s Yuval Levin and NYT’s David Brooks each typically and often both get and keep my attention.

But let it be said if you watch solely from one of the above lists, you are succumbing to a limited perspective. Such was glaringly true in the last election cycle.

Let me not suggest that an always loyal landing on solely the Post or the Times or on CNN, MSNBC or FOX will provide you with inaccurate news. Perhaps the slant is accurate. Perhaps the slant is credible. But the slant is also known to be biased — which actually makes it more difficult to discern if the perspective is accurate, credible or true. 

Let’s keep being honest… to be biased is to be limited; by definition, bias means we’re actually “unfairly prejudiced against someone or something”… in other words, not ever something equated with virtue.

All said, AllSides released their updated Media Bias Ratings this week. Their conclusions are based on multi-partisan, scientific analysis. Note that sometimes the bias of some sites changes. For example, in the substantiating blind bias survey, The Atlantic moved from its previous rating of “lean left” to the more “left.” 

See more sites here: 

I see this simply as a tool. It’s a tool I appreciate as I believe bias — especially unacknowledged and unstated — can be manipulative and thus potentially dangerous. Why? Because bias makes discernment of truth harder… conversation and solution harder then, too.

Hence, I enjoy The Hill, Real Clear Politics, and The Wall Street Journal news with regularity. I feel like we get good news there. There’s no one on the other end attempting to rile us up or make us judge someone with an opposing perspective.

Just being honest, friends… trying to not be so limited either.

Respectfully…

AR