Wednesday's Biased Item - January 31, 2007
Bad News From Iraq, According to the New York Times
Excerpt
QUESTION: After reading the excerpt below from James Taranto's Jan. 26 posting at OpinionJournal.com, scroll down to "Types of Media Bias." Which type of bias best describes the New York Times' report on the Iraq Parliament's approval of Pres. Bush's new strategy?'Eventually, However...'
Good news from Iraq: Parliament has approved Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's plan for securing Baghdad, which means that President Bush's new strategy has the legal approval of the Iraqi government.
Bad news from Iraq, according to the New York Times:
Iraq's Shiite prime minister and Sunni lawmakers hurled insults at one another during a raucous session of Parliament on Thursday, with the prime minister threatening a Sunni lawmaker with arrest and the Sunni speaker of Parliament threatening to quit.
That's the lead paragraph. The 27th paragraph--yes, the twenty-seventh--finally informs us of the outcome:
Eventually, though, the tensions eased and Parliament approved the security plan.
If Parliament had rejected the plan, do you think the Times would have waited until the 27th paragraph to tell us?
Go to OpinionJoural.com for the original posting.
ANSWER: The excerpt above is an example of bias by placement.
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
- ‘Embarrassing News’
October 8, 2008 - When Watchdogs Snore: How ABC, CBS & NBC Ignored Fannie & Freddie
October 1, 2008 - AP: US ‘A Nation That Enshrined Slavery in its Constitution’
September 24, 2008 - Media’s Treatment of Hillary, Barack and Sarah
September 17, 2008 - Media Credibility Plummets
September 10, 2008
