While flipping through news channels one day, I came across a CNN segment in which Wolf Blitzer showed the audience how to "dougie." As I watched this aged news anchor jettison all semblance of journalistic integrity, I began to ponder why we watch the news. More and more, it seems as if the news is striving to entertain rather than to inform people about current events. In that same vein, it appears that the news is also trying to cater to certain ideological demographics in exciting new ways rather than simply presenting us with the mere facts of the day. This bias can present itself in many ways: lopsided debates, highlighting certain stories while burying others and sometimes just plain pandering to one ideology in particular. Our first reaction might be to decry this as the downfall of legitimate journalism, but we must remember that the reason this style of news exists is because there is a demand for it.
The Media Research Center published a report about the political leanings of journalists from varying types of media using data from the 2004 election. About 52 percent of individuals surveyed said they voted for Democrat John Kerry, while only 19 percent cast their votes for his opponent, Republican George W. Bush (the rest refused to disclose who they voted for). Unless all 52 percent of those journalists have a robotic demeanor that keeps them from letting their beliefs encroach on the impartiality of their work - which largely covers political issues - there must be at least some tinge of a liberal bias in the news media today.
Many scoff at the idea of media bias while others argue that saying there is "some tinge" of media bias is like claiming Mount Everest is a rather large hill. "There is an irrefutable liberal bias in the media," first-year College student Katie Wymer said. "How do I deal with it? Largely by relying on Fox News and doing my own research to check the validity of what I hear."
Sometimes this bias is overt. MSNBC, for example, is known for its liberal commentators, and Fox News is notorious for its conservative personalities. CNN, meanwhile, tries to remain in the center. It is pretty easy to see where these networks lie on the political spectrum. But how much does political bias in commentary affect the actual news?
This bias will - and often does - affect the types of stories that headline the news and the ones that are hardly mentioned. MSNBC spends an inordinate amount of time picking apart the excruciating minutiae of every Sarah Palin gaffe and Fox does the same thing with President Obama, yet CNN is criticized for enhancing Anderson Cooper's hair. Of course, conservatives will be quick to point out that this bias is not just isolated to MSNBC, but permeates the media as a whole. Fox News is not a menacing entity trying to make every man, woman and child a hard-core, red-state Republican; it is merely conservatives' oasis in the desert. Ratings suggest that Fox may not be so fringe after all. Fox News continually pounds MSNBC and most other cable news outlets on a nightly basis. Perhaps Fox News is so popular because - and I know this may frighten some of us - people like it. The ratings indicate an obvious demand for watching the often comedic histrionics of Glenn Beck. "Audiences often determine, unconsciously or otherwise, which content most adequately reflects their own partisan opinions," third-year College student Leah Paisner said. "As subscription networks, the cable news stations cater to the biases of the paying viewers." If people want to watch Beck for hours on end, who are we to judge? People spend hours watching American Idol and I am not aware of a seething undercurrent of angst stemming from that while Fox News is constantly berated on the grounds that it is warping the minds of our children and making the world unsafe for truth, justice and the American way.
Faux News, as its detractors so cleverly put it, is painted as the paragon of spin founded as the brainchild of an evil mastermind named Rupert Murdoch. Any clear-headed individual knows this claim is a bit exaggerated. People want to watch Fox News mainly because it presents a certain point of view that appeals to them. If you want a more liberal point of view, you have your options, and if you want a more conservative one, there are options as well. I have also discovered the key to eliminating all media bias; everyone who owns a television has it. If you do not like what you are seeing on the news and think it is overly biased, calm down and hit the big "power off" button. Hulu has better shows, anyway.
Pietro Sanitate's column appears Tuesday in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.sanitate@cavalierdaily.com.
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