News in a World of Biases:
When searching for an idea for my wild card paper I thought to myself how do we trust the media blindly to deliver news to us without any bias or invalid information. Now I myself am not into politics or very interested in the news but with all the craziness in the world I find myself more interested in the topic than normal. Being an election year and in the middle of a worldwide pandemic I think staying up to date on current events is more important than it ever has been. However, I constantly like many others my age who I have discussed this issue with are wondering who to trust in the crazy chaos of this technologically advanced era. The questions that many face is what news sources are most biased. Big Think related an article in April attempting to show how biased news sources are. The article is forward and to the point starting off with the bold statement of "The New York Times was a failing newspaper before changing its business model to muckraking on Trump. Fox News had to drop its 'Fair and Balanced' motto because that's false advertising. CNN should be renamed the 'Know-Nothing Network." The article features a chart that breaks down the bias in a large multitude of news outlets. Everyone always has different opinions and preferences which can make finding a reliable news source difficult because each individual finds one that shares their personal views. If you need guidance in pinpointing a news source to look into this chart breaks down the biases in each news source.
This year being a major election year that many believed to be the most important election in our nation's history has made the world of news a whirlwind of information. Not to mention when you throw a global pandemic on top of it it can make new sources become quite overwhelming. I did a presentation on the breakdown of election week coverage where I discussed the two most accessed sources of news, CNN and Fox News. Generally speaking these two news outlets are extremely biassed to the political party they favor but typically covering elections they both seem to keep the bias at bay. This doesn't mean that they don't focus on the candidate they typically cover as CNN of course will focus on Vice President Joe Biden and Fox news will focus on President Trump. Statements were made almost immediately by the current president that he would start an investigation on the state of Wisconsin after demanding a recount. Of course, Fox News was quick to relay this news to viewers as a vast majority are in favor of the Republican Party. Just as CNN was the first to make a projection of Vice President Joe Biden winning the election.
JJ Prior is a writer who wrote a paper with an interesting outlook on who is the least biased news source in America today. The article featured many statistics that displayed the breakdown of the decision that Prior came to. Over 34 news sources are considered to be Liberal and 40 sources were said to be found neutral. He then asks the question "What news sources should we be reading?" The rankings were made with the ideas of least amount of bias with the highest amount of reliability with their reporting. In the top 15 sources that made this list sources featured include ABC News, Wall Street Journal, PBS, CBS, and many more. Of those 15 sites over 1.169 billion Americans have visited them in the past month. However, the top five news sources that have the most traffic in the United States are CNN, Weather.com, Fox News, New York Times, and the Washington Post. Notice how none of these were listed above in the highly reliable non biased news sources list. This means that 3.23 billion americans are accessing their news monthly through these news sources. We live in a time where having knowledge in current events is very important but we are learning our information through obvious bias. At the end of Prior's research one of his final statements I believe speaks volumes about the world we are living in.
"As you can see from the data above, there are many sites that are clearly spreading false information, opinion, and extremism. This does not bring us together. It leads to us doubting our neighbors, our friends, our parents, and other important people in our lives." This statement can easily be applied to what is occurring around the country now especially dealing with politics. People in my age demographic are uploading videos with misleading information regarding the different parties fueling the world with misinformation.
Even though I know many are set in their own views and will continue to access news that reflects their personal opinions, I believe that everyone should research news sources. Having this new knowledge on the world of news I know now more than ever that their is bias everywhere in news and you have to take statements with a grain of salt. In a global pandemic trusting news has become more important than ever before. Do research learn who is most reliable find news that works for you and educates you as well.
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