Wednesday's Biased Item - October 29, 2008
Most Voters Say News Media Wants Obama to Win
Directions
Read the excerpt below (from people-press.org/report/463/media-wants-obama). Read "Types of Media Bias" in the right column. Then answer the questions.
Questions
1. What do the results of this poll tell you about the media?
b) Do you think this bias has affected how the media portrays both candidates and how people view the candidates?
2. a) Do you think that the media is biased in favor of Sen. Obama, in favor of Sen. McCain, or that journalists don't favor either candidate? Explain your answer.
b) Ask a parent the same question.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the answer.
Excerpt
Voters overwhelmingly believe that the media wants Barack Obama to win the presidential election. By a margin of 70%-9%, Americans say most journalists want to see Obama, not John McCain, win on Nov. 4. Another 8% say journalists don't favor either candidate, and 13% say they don't know which candidate most reporters support. .....
In recent presidential campaigns, voters repeatedly have said they thought journalists favored the Democratic candidate over the Republican. But this year's margin is particularly wide. At this stage of the 2004 campaign, 50% of voters said most journalists wanted to see John Kerry win the election, while 22% said most journalists favored George Bush. In October 2000, 47% of voters said journalists wanted to see Al Gore win and 23% said most journalists wanted Bush to win. In 1996, 59% said journalists were pulling for Bill Clinton.
In the current campaign, Republicans, Democrats and independents all feel that the media wants to see Obama win the election. Republicans are almost unanimous in their opinion: 90% of GOP voters say most journalists are pulling for Obama. More than six-in-ten Democratic and independent voters (62% each) say the same.
Read the new survey from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press at people-press.org/report/463/media-wants-obama.
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
- Accountability Journalism
December 10, 2008 - NY Times’ Nicholas Kristof Acknowledges Media Bias
December 3, 2008 - ABC’s Tapper Says Media Favored Obama
November 26, 2008 - Abandon All Hope
November 19, 2008 - Washington Post Admits Bias Towards Obama
November 12, 2008
