Mass Media Bias part 2

Why is there a bias in the media?






There are very many different filters that lie between the facts of a situation as it occurs and the final version of events in our living rooms. Some of these filters are well-intentioned; many are unconsciously affecting the story and other filters are quite deliberately there to manipulate the public to a specific point of view.

Among some of the well-intentioned filters are a) those meant to protect the innocent people in the story from harm; b) those meant to protect the public from the more distressing and horrific aspects of the story and c) those filters that are meant to ensure we get the news we want and need by weeding out those that we have no interest in. These filters themselves are problematic enough. Protecting innocent victims sometimes has a side effect of allowing a repetition of the atrocities to occur through lack of awareness; keeping news free from the more horrific effects of modern warfare can allow it to go on for many years before sufficient public outrage is created to change government policy; the decision about what is considered interesting is problematical, too, in a country that seems to care more about the latest evictee from Big Brother than in the painful effects of UK politics on a few million people in some faraway place.



Unconscious filters to our news output come about largely due to our culture and upbringing. Those who grow up in a society that believes they are culturally superior to certain other races will more readily accept the UK and US claims that they must bomb Arab countries to bring them freedom and democracy. They will see ‘terrorism’ in the attempts of these besieged countries to free themselves from their tormentors but heroism in the acts of war committed by their own forces. Even though logic would show that our own Governments have waged war on countries miles from our own, that offer no threat to us and which have absolutely no defense against our armed forces. The psychological effect of fighting in these empire building wars is increasingly evident in the suicides and breakdowns among US personnel returning from America’s wars abroad.



Mass media also imposes its own filters in that it is a commercial enterprise seeking profit and ratings success. There is a subtle filter at work that ensures the predominance of stories that fit in with general opinion. Frequently the real story, supported by plenty factual evidence is scrapped or relegated to a small slot on page 14 while minor news that fits in with the public’s current perceptions will be emblazoned across the headlines of every news outlet. More subtly, but nevertheless worth keeping an eye on in these days of huge corporations in the media, if you want to keep a well paid job in any media market, it is usually wise to keep in mind your owner’s personal viewpoint and agenda.



Finally the most insidious and malevolent filters are those imposed on our news stories by the people in power. Examples of these are well known in Britain but most people associate them with dictatorships like Communist Russia or China. People seem to be more blinkered about their own government’s shortcomings in this area. A very successful method of monitoring the Iraq war was that of insisting that all journalists from the West worked lived and moved with the troops. Any one outside these parameters was considered inimical to the safety and success of the war effort. These embedded journalists of the Gulf war quickly succumbed to the brothers-in-arms whitewashing of news from the frontline in the war on Iraq. Briefings became less about feeding unfortunate news to inquisitive journalists disguised with the preferred spin, and more about coming together to ensure that support for the war would be nurtured by the stories released to the general public. Back home, the readiness to send government briefings straight to the printing press or News studio without verification continued the unbalanced shaping of the news.

At the same time, many lies were published from the ‘undisclosed sources’. Later when the lies were shown up for what they were ie deliberate, unabashed propaganda, there was no one to point the finger at and accuse of lying. Blair and his cohorts have proved adept at passing the buck in his way at subsequent investigations.

‘I took it in good faith…..’ ‘I had no reason to question the facts before me..’

Most sinister of all are the questionable deaths of those who would attempt to bring the truth to the people. This includes the deliberate murder of ‘unilateral’ journalists during the war on Iraq. The attack and vilification of dissenting journalists and the bombing of Al Jazeera’s residential compound by two US missiles in the same war.