Wednesday's Biased Item - May 16, 2007
AP caption: High Gas Prices are Posted at a Shell Gas Station
Excerpt
Read the excerpt below from OpinionJournal.com posted by James Taranto on May 15, 2007. Then scroll down and read "Types of Media Bias."QUESTIONS:
1. Why do you think that the Associated Press (AP) chose not to clarify their caption by explaining the real reason for the $4/gallon price at the Shell station?
2. Do you think that the AP intended to mislead readers? Explain your answer.
2. Do you think this is an example of bias by OMISSION? Explain your answer.
Another great AP moment is this photo caption:
High gas prices are posted at a Shell gas station, right, with a Chevron gas station gas prices posted at left, in San Francisco, Thursday, May 10, 2007. With gasoline prices poised to break records at the pump, energy futures prices jumped Thursday as traders noticed a gas supply imbalance in the fine print of Wednesday's government inventory report.
Gas at the Chevron station is $3.759 for intermediate grade and $3.879 for premium (regular is cropped out), but at the Shell station, shockingly, it's over $4 a gallon: $4.339 for regular up to $4.539 for premium.
What the AP doesn't note but the San Francisco Chronicle does is that the owner of the Shell station, Bob Oyster, raised his prices as a protest:
Putting the price way up over $4 a gallon isn't about making a profit. It's about making a statement to a multinational corporation. After Shell forced him to pay higher prices for gas in San Francisco and jacked up his rent, Oyster says, he decided to fight back.
"I got fed up,'' Oyster admits. "It makes a statement, and I guess when people see that price they also see the Shell sign right next to it.''
In fact, far from making a huge profit, Oyster is going out of business. He has operated the Shell station at Sixth and Harrison for 22 years, but he's walking away from it at the end of the month, handing over the keys to Shell officials and expecting them to shut it down.
Soon, no doubt, the AP will report that someone has done a poll finding that Americans think big oil companies are to blame for high gas prices.
Go to OpinionJournal.com for the original posting.
To accurately identify different types of bias, you should be aware of the issues of the day, and the liberal and conservative perspectives on each issue. (See our chart “Conservative vs. Liberal Beliefs”)
Types of Media Bias:
Omission – leaving one side out of an article or a series of articles over a period of time... (read more)
Selection of Sources – including more sources that support one view over another... (read more)
Story Selection – a pattern of highlighting news stories that support one side of an issue over another... (read more)
Placement – the location in the paper or article where a story or event is printed; a pattern of placing news stories so as to downplay information supportive of one side... (read more)
Labeling – comes in two forms: 1. Tagging of person from one party or group with extreme labels while leaving the other side unlabeled or with more mild labels. 2. A reporter not only fails to identify a liberal or conservative as such, but also describes the person or group with positive labels, such as “an expert” or “independent consumer group”... (read more)
Spin – occurs when the story has only one interpretation of an event or policy, to the exclusion of the other. Spin involves tone- a reporter’s subjective comments about objective facts... (read more)
Previous Biased Items
- The NY Times: A Year-Long Analysis: Part 1
August 27, 2008 - Washington Post Ombudsman: ‘3 to 1’ Obama Front Page Advantage
August 20, 2008 - Poll Shows Majority of Americans Believe Reporters Try to Help Their Candidates Win
June 11, 2008 - The Great Media Depression
June 4, 2008 - The AP Maligns Our Soldiers On Memorial Day Weekend
May 28, 2008
