The tactic used by some U.S. papers is to put questionable* content in the Op-Ed section. That way, when readers call them out on it the editors can sputter that it’s just the author’s opinion, and has nothing to do with the views of the publication presenting those views to the masses. If the issue causes enough controversy they might also issue a nonpology and ramble about both sides of every issue (while looking for the next editorial opportunity to increase readership and raise ad revenue).
Some UK activists need to get together and create a “counter-paparazzi” that will follow tabloid journalists around in swarms and splash stories about them and their children all over their own counter-tabloid headlines.
I’m sure the tabloid journalists will be more than happy to take what they dish out.
I distinctily remember being taught that you should approach any potential story with a degree of objectivity so that the readership could decide for themselves. But hey, you want to deny what I was taught, you do you.
You may have been told that, but it’s impossible to do that.
A “non-bias” is automatically privileged towards the status quo. It creates default assumptions. Things we’ve been steeped in since childhood, through school, things we’re so familiar with we don’t even recognize it as bias.
Think about a common “neutral” reporting sentence. “The suspect was shot by police, while attempting to flee the scene.”
First, most glaringly, it’s accepting one account as fact. It’s painting the police in favorable terms by using their version. The injured (or dead) victim is assumed to have caused their own demise. The passive “was shot by” makes it seem like police were acted upon by “the suspect” and thus the shooting naturally occured. It takes the blame for the act of shooting away from the police and places it on the person who was shot.
Second, the choice of words: suspect? Suspected by who? The people who shot them and therefore need a justification for doing so? Fleeing the scene, or attempting to hide from / escape aggressive armed persons who showed up and started screaming at them? Maybe they were walking past, going to meet a friend. Maybe they are from a culture that doesn’t trust police, maybe for very good reason. Maybe they don’t speak English. But that sentence biases us towards thinking that they’re involved and must be a criminal, and didn’t follow police commands, and that they would have been fine if they had (spoiler alert, maybe they did, we’ve already established this is taking the police version at face value).
Further, what images came to your mind when you read? Did you see a man as the person who got shot? What about the police? What color were the respective players? All of those unconscious things effect even reporters and editors and their word choice. That’s why Trayvon Martin was no angel and Brock Turner was a bright young man and an athlete. That’s why you’ll get an intimidating photo or a mug shot of a black person but a grad photo of a white person. Entire histories of association and affinities for Nazi ideology were erased just this last summer to create the image of a pair of troubled young men who went on a murder spree across my country just this last summer.
“Unbiased” just means it plays to your conscious and unconscious defaults. It’s still a bias, you just can’t see it because you’re in the middle of it.
…which reinforces my point. That when learning journalism, you’re taught to use a degree of objectivity when writing a story (if nothing else than for legal reasons; the lesson about objectivity is usually quickly followed up with one about libel and defamation of character), but when you leave education and enter the workforce, any objectivity you may intend is compromised by your employer.
Hell, you may even write a fairly objective piece, but the editorial team will alter your words to best represent the stance of the paper.
This, exactly. Funny how on the right this is considered a character flaw, while on the progressive end, it is high praise. Yup, right funny ol’ world.
Backing up Humbabella here; I’ve heard people apply the word “uppity” to their own race as well; in both the black and white communities. It feels like it is often applied when the speaker feels that the person in question is acting at a higher social rank than they feel that they should have achieved, regardless of the person’s actual social rank or if it is above or below the speaker’s social rank.
It intersects with racism and sexism in that the speaker often feels that all people of the races or gender identities that the speaker hates without reason should be of a lower social rank than they are.
While by all accounts her majesty the Duchess of Sussex is a charming, intelligent, successful person who had great success before her marriage; I can understand why sexist and racist half-wits would call her that since she has achieved perhaps the highest social rank in the world and her behavior is quite appropriate and gracious for that ranking.
Alas, for it to be effective, it would have to be following the owners and the senior editors, not the foot soldiers. And when they get annoyed, then they call their friends over at the local constabulary, and ask to send some of their ugliest thugs over to crack heads. And since they own the media, who will be the wiser?
Really, the only way to stop these scum is to catch them red handed, like what happened to News of the World.
