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January 02, 2005
Fair and Balanced
Often when people are watching or reading the news they mistakenly believe they are watching mere dissemination of facts devoid of bias. This could not be further from the truth. Bias, like speed, is relative (as mentioned before). There is no middle, only relative middles. So, if you are only exposed to a single POV, that is your middle and anything else would be further right or further left of your center, which you may believe is THE center. Is there no hope?
In comes Google News. What's so great about Google News is that it is news content aggregated by a computer. A computer which I can assure you is neither right-wing or left, neither republican or democrat. I'm not saying there might not be ways of influencing Google news, but the truth is in there. Google news merely looks for similar stories and groups them together, so you can see all the versions of a particular story from many sources in many different places. This has the added benefit of SHOWING how biased the media is by showing you such different perspectives on the same issues all in the name of unbiased news. If it was unbiased, how would they all be so different? Of course, some people will not accept this as proof of all media being biased. They will find the story that most closely aligns with their wold-view and call the others biased. The Irony will be lost on them. The reality is, given the political nature of so many issues, you can find conflicting views on almost any story. Just click on the link that says 599 Related Stories and start reading the titles.
I do not believe any news is un-biased, so I am always watching for clues. The first clue is the title. The more resolute the title, the more likely it is to be biased. When I see an article with an obviously inflammatory title, I immediately click the Related link and look for other opposing stories. A lot of the time, the differences will be subtle, while other times it seems like they are from different planets. Take this example of articles related to the new Michael Crichton novel, "State of Fear". One headline reads, "A right-winger attacks global warming" vs. another headline which reads, "Global warming? Now that really is fiction". Both articles are convincing, especially if you're already on once side or another.
So, in order to remain objective we need only click the more related link on google news right? Unfortunately its not that east. First of all, I have to admit that since I started using Google news, I find myself looking for articles written by papers I trust. This isn't inherently bad, but it is way I impose my bias onto the news. I've consciously decided who I will trust, but in doing so, run the risk of being led astray by believing my source to be unbiased. The second problem, and this is the larger problem, is that there appears to be a stunningly limited number of points of view represented in today's media. It really does appear the media represents the right and the left so succinctly, it is easy to forget there are other points of view. Even the labels, 'right' and 'left' imply a perfect duality, I mean, things CAN only be RIGHT or LEFT right? Seeing things as a strait line with two ends, that makes sense, but REALITY is really more like a large sphere with points of view at any point in 3 dimensional space. Like the Wonkavator™, people's points of view will be in all directions from yours, upways, downways, slantways, longways, and even halfways. By having 2 point's of view that are so all encompassing we often forget there are others. Just watch the news talking head's shows and you'll see how they try and force us to choose sides, as if those were the only two POV that existed.
Can the truth be known than, given the relative nature of bias? I'm starting to think of the TRUTH more like quantum particles. There IS truth, but like quantum particles, any attempt to measure its exact location, direction and velocity at a given precise moment influences that particle and changes the answer. We influence the answer by observing it and thus can never really know what the answer would have been if we had not influenced it. This is the nature of truth. By looking at it with our own eyes we influence it in a direction in agreement to or in opposition to our own bias. In that sense, its more about probabilities. We gather peripheral information to gain context and try and counter our bias. By doing this we increase the probability we are closer to understanding the truth. We can never truly know though. Only try, and try we must. Desiring to know the truth outside of bias is a nobel desire that can only make one a better, more understanding person.
Posted by wonko at January 2, 2005 02:27 PM
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