No matter how hard media and news outlets try, there will always be a bias in their writing even if the general tone appears impartial and non-judgemental. The words themselves can be bias even if the article doesn’t have the inherent bias to it.
The best current example is the articles on the Virginia Tech gunman. Different outlets haven used slightly different words to describe him and his actions.
I have selected 5 different media outlets at random; two that are funded by the country itself and three that are independently owned and operated. The ones run by a nation are expected to meet certain requirements and journalism standards and the privately owned ones rely on internal accountability.
BBC News – Gunman sent final video
CBC News – Virginia Tech gunman sent package to NBC
Toronto Star -Gunman’s mad manifesto
CNN – Students angered, outraged by gunman’s manifesto
The Australian – Killer sent manifesto to media
The bias is obvious in the titles of the three privately owned media outlets. They’ve aimed for sensationalist titles that grab the reader’s attention rather than describe the story. BBC and CBC have given their articles objective titles. There is nothing bias about using the term ‘gunman’ as it accurately describes the person and the second part tells what his actions are.
The other three outlets could have chosen different words to convey the same meaning. The Star could have chosen words that stated in plain language that NBC had received a video. CNN could have removed the word ‘student’ and simply written something else (after all, it is a given that people would be aghast at the material that the gunman had sent in), and the Australian could have chosen another word besides ‘Killer’ as gunman denotes the same meaning but it’s more specific and it isn’t as sensationalist.
How did the outlets decide to describe the package received at NBC? The opening paragraph of each article tells of a bias at that outlet. There is only one opening paragraph out of these 5 that doesn’t have a glaring bias, or a sensationalist lean to it.
The package contained “disturbing” photographs, video and writings, NBC said, posted from the college campus between the two rounds of killings. – BBC
The gunman who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech university mailed a package of photographs, videos and writings to NBC News before he died. – CBC
A deranged Cho Sueng-Hui emerged from the grave last night via a chilling package of videos and incoherent hate-filled rantings that he mailed between his two gun rampages on the Virginia Tech campus. – The Star
Virginia Tech students reacted with disgust, anger, shock and fear Thursday to the paranoid multimedia manifesto that student gunman Cho Seung-Hui mailed the morning of his Monday killing spree. – CNN
The gunman who shot dead 32 people at Virginia Tech university paused during his killing spree to post a video manifesto of his grievances to a television station. “You just loved to crucify me. When the time came, I did it. I had to,” Cho Seung-Hui declared in the video in which he rails against Christianity and hedonism. – The Australian
If the BBC hadn’t used the word ‘disturbing’, the opening sentence would be objective. The Star paints a picture of a raving mad man. CNN keeps the descriptive rhetoric to a minimum but there is an element of bias there as their choice of wording is meant to grab the user and pull them in. The Australian did a decent job of not over-dramatising it and used decent wording that while is moderately sensationalist is still not as bad as the others. The only outlet of the five to use impartial, objective wording was CBC. It follows the core tenets of Pulitzer journalism; the 5 Ws (who, what where why, when). The first sentence of the article from CBC answers all those questions and the wording is very mild and well-selected. It’s enough to paint a picture for the reader without reverting to Dickensian tactics.
What we don’t need to know in the first paragraph: that the gunman had mental issues, that his videos were disturbing, that people were outraged by the videos et cetera.
What we needed to know: what the action was, who did it, why they did it… as I said above, the 5 Ws of journalism.
How did each outlet decide to describe the package after the first paragraph?
CBC used strong words that were fitting yet not simple. They used words that could describe the video without over-dramatising the nature of it as some other outlets have.
In a profane, sometimes incoherent videotaped rant, the gunman expressed rage and resentment. He showed off his guns, and in a lengthy written manifesto, railed against the world. – CBC
Unlike CBC, the BBC chose to include snippets from the video rather than using words to describe it as CBC had chosen to do. It’s equally as effective and it removes a potential for bias wording in the description. It simple explains the quoted dialogue that would proceed it.
In the videos Cho Seung-hui is shown pointing guns at the camera, and ranting angrily.
How eloquantly did the Toronto Star handle the description of the video? The paragraph describing it matched the over-dramatised rhetoric used to pen the opening paragraph; that front page sensationalist lingo that makes people read on.
In the package Cho mailed Monday to NBC News, the architect of the worst gun massacre in U.S. history likens himself to Jesus Christ, pays tribute to the killers at Colorado’s Columbine High School and points the barrel of one of his handguns at the camera repeatedly.
‘The worst’? Isn’t that what the newspapers said about Columbine and other subsequent shootings? How is it ‘the worst’ when history shows that it will only be the worst until another disgruntled individual comes along to become a ‘martyr’ and make headlines across the world because he unloaded his arsenal on a group of innocent people?
Or how about CNN’s take on the release of the videos on NBC?
The package also contained several photographs of Cho pointing guns, a hammer and a knife at the camera, others in which he holds a gun to his head and a knife to his throat and a few photos of him looking like an ordinary college student.
This paragraph does describe in a little more detail exactly what was in the photographs. By itself, it’s fairly objective. However, in context with the surrounding paragraphs, the reader is meant to feel the same pain and suffering as the people who were quoted in the article. This description was embedded amongst numerous reactions, all which conveyed the same feeling of fear and terror.
The Australian opted for a judgemental tone in its writing in the description of the videos.
The package contained several videos and 43 digital photographs, 11 showing him brandishing the two pistols he used in the massacre.
Given that the pictures were aired on national television (which later sparked an incredible backlash due to NBC’s bad taste), is it necessary to describe that the gunman was ‘brandishing’ the weapons? Why did they single out the gun when there was a picture of him wielding a hammer in a threatening manner and another one where he had a knife? Yes the guns were used to perpetrate the massacre but the two pistols weren’t the only arsenal subject matter in the images.
Is it necessary in journalism to write every story in a sensationalist manner? Why does the media insist on engaging in a feeding frenzy then lamenting about the victims and the families while trying to elicit heart-wretching responses from them? What ever happened to objective journalism? It only comes out when the story doesn’t matter and the stories that don’t matter are the one to two paragraph articles that get haphazardly buried in the back pages of the newspapers and given low priority at the end of the evening news segment, while the 24 hour news channels blare ad nauseum the same story, milking it for every last ounce of blood ’till it becomes like squeezing blood from a rock.
