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May 24, 2004

Screeching about ____ bias...

I've come to loathe the word "bias" even as I use it to explain journalistic behavior that I think is far more important to a proper understanding the press than the pointing out of political partisanship (overt or otherwise).

Jay Rosen does us a great service by pointing out the obvious:

To me, any work of journalism is saturated with bias from the moment the reporter leaves the office--and probably before that--to the edited and finished product.

There's bias in the conversation our biased reporter has with his biased editor, bias in the call list he develops for his story, bias in his choice of events to go out and cover, bias in the details he writes down at the event, bias in his lead paragraph, bias in the last paragraph, bias when his editor cuts a graph. The headline someone else writes for him-- that has bias. There's bias in the placement of the story. (No bias in the pixels or printer's ink, though.)

"Bias" demands modification. The bias Rosen speaks of is the kind no human can ever escape (nor would you want to). Bias is made necessary by the judgment required to make choices as presented to us in limited systems.

I modify "bias" with "structural" to speak of the frames of thought that I believe are far more important to understanding journalistic behavior than the "bias" many call "political." All choices are political to one extent or another, so "political" is hardly modification at all.

To insist on partisan political bias ("the press is liberal" or "the press is conservative"), to take one of these sides to the exclusion of contrary evidence, is to engage in partisan struggle for rhetorical and political purposes. Claiming overt, partisan, liberal or conservative, political bias fits the needs of ideological struggle, not greater understanding. And this means we will continue to suffer the cultural white noise of all those flamers screeching about ______ bias.

Posted by acline at May 24, 2004 9:17 AM | | Spotlight