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Evaluating News: Biased News

This LibGuide was created to help you evaluate the news around you, teach you to identify Fake News, Biased News, Satirical News, and Propaganda

Definition of Biased News

Bias, by definition, refers to showing unjustified favoritism toward something or someone. Thus, on a very simplistic level, media bias refers to the media exhibiting unjustifiable favoritism as they cover the news. When the media transmit biased news reports, those reports present viewers with an inaccurate, unbalanced, and/or unfair view of the world around them.

Levasseur, David G. "Media Bias." Encyclopedia of Political Communication, Lynda Lee Kaid, Sage Publications, 2008. Credo Reference, http://proxy.uscupstate.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/sagepolcom/media_bias/0. Accessed 23 Jan 2017.

The DEADLY facts about water by LKaras UofSC Upstate

Types of Bias

Bias is defined as prejudice against or in favor of one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair. Media bias is when journalists, news producers, and news outlets show bias in the selection of events and stories as well as the ways they are reported. Below find explanations of several of the ways in which bias can show up in the media. When you know what to look for you can see a story for what it is.

It is getting harder to tell...

Wall Street Journal same day two headlines image

Things are getting harder to tell the truth, the bias, and the fake... The picture above appeared on social media claiming that the same paper ran different headlines depending on the market...

According to Snopes http://www.snopes.com/wsj-different-trump-headlines/

This is a mix of true and false, True two different headlines False different markets, they are from different editions the early edition after Trump meet with the President of Mexico and seemed to soften his tone the second later in the day when he changed his tone about the wall.

Violations of Media Objectivity

Media Objectivit by LKaras Work

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation Bias

"Confirmation bias, or the selective collection of evidence, is our subconscious tendency to seek and interpret information and other evidence in ways that affirm our existing beliefs, ideas, expectations, and/or hypotheses. Therefore, confirmation bias is both affected by and feeds our implicit biases. It can be most entrenched around beliefs and ideas that we are strongly attached to or that provoke a strong emotional response." 

“Confirmation and Other Biases.” Resource Library. Facing History and Ourselves. Accessed March 11, 2021. https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/facing-ferguson-news-literacy-digital-age/confirmation-and-other-biases.


How to Thwart Your Confirmation Bias

  • “*Counter-argue your story hypothesis,” or source’s assertion.
  • Actively seek out contrary information.
  • Rigorously test and verify every fact or assertion of fact before you publish, so you’ll be able to stand by the accuracy of your work later.

From Twenty ways to cultivate an open mind, From Overcoming Bias, A Journalist's Guide to culture & context

partisan by LKaras Work

News Bias