Fact check your news

By Medicine Hat News Opinon on January 7, 2019.

There have been a number of independent studies that establish that the North American media is staffed by people who are up to 90 per cent on the left end of the political spectrum. Until recent years, this has not been a particular problem because schools of journalism emphasized that news reporting should be void of political bias. For the most part news reporters at least made an effort to hide their political biases and leanings. Since that is nearly impossible to do on a consistent basis, that bias could often be detected in news reports in spite of the reporter’s best efforts. In the past 30 or more years, a number of right leaning news outlets have emerged in an effort to balance the available interpretations of the news.

With the dawning of 24-hour cable news channels, a proliferation of opinion news shows have emerged with hosts and guests that are clearly biased in their views. It is important that one distinguish between a news show that is reporting news in a way that at least makes an effort to avoid opinion, and shows and hosts that are expounding and supporting a specific point of view. The opinion shows have grown as the result of the need for viewers on the 24-hour cable news channels.

Lately, the media has been accused of reporting “fake news.” As a result, they have become defensive and accused others of attempting to curtail freedom of the press and interfering in their role as government watch dog. The media defines fake news as totally false reports that are either incorrect or totally unsubstantiated. There is a broader definition which includes over the top rhetoric and exaggerated reports, along with news items that are totally ignored and never presented to the public due to media bias. Harvard studies and others have shown that CNN, MSNBC and others spend little or no time reporting any positive aspects or successes of the Trump presidency and have calculated that there is a negative spin in excess of 90 per cent of their coverage. The opinion shows on these networks rarely have guests that will offer a point of view that is different from the narrative that these stations support. In other words, there is little or no balance in the reporting and the opinion is exaggerated and often way over the top with hyperbole and predictions of doom. The public is detecting this and is seeking other sources for their news as evidenced by the declining ratings of these stations and other media outlets.

Most people do not have the time to watch many different news broadcasts in a day in order to detect how the information is differing or what news the station has chosen not to report. Most do not have time to check the facts reported by the news in order to ensure that some small detail, that might completely alter one’s perception of the story, has not been altered or omitted.

When a biased media and opinion journalists get information that either fits or distorts their view of the world, they can hype it up to insane emotional levels in order to garner support from more listeners and improve ratings. This type of rhetoric further distorts the facts and taints the truth of the situation.

In Canada, our media bias is somewhat less overt than in the U.S. but that bias is often still there in some more subtle ways. If we have single source news, we hear only one point of view. In order to have the full picture, we need to understand issues from more than one perspective and then decide where we stand once in full possession of all the pertinent facts. A biased media can do a major disservice by leaving the vast majority of the population either misinformed or under informed about the issues. We too often make political choices based on that biased information. How we receive this information must be further filtered through our own bias as well.

Media outlets have been fighting back against Donald Trump for calling them “fake news.” The reality is that the bias, rhetoric and hyperbole used by some media outlets today is not intended to inform but to indoctrinate listeners to a certain point of view. We concern ourselves with our enemies distorting our news but we should be just as vigilant of deliberately biased media misinforming our voters in order to influence their views. It always pays to get the news from more than one perspective in order to be fully informed.

Paul McLennan moved to Alberta more than 20 years ago as a member of the RCMP. He remained in Alberta after retirement in 2002, taught driving part time and settled in Medicine Hat in 2011.

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