To have a further discussion about the nature of news and explore how news has been less objective and its relations with politics, I would like to discuss some arguments put forward by Michael Schudson, in his chapter, “Media Bias”, which is a relevant but not a required reading.
Michael Schudson points out that “the belief in objectivity is a faith in ‘facts,’ a distrust in ‘values,’ and a commitment to their segregation.” It refers to the prevailing ideology of newsgathering and reporting that emphasizes eyewitness accounts of events, corroboration of facts with multiple sources and balance of viewpoints. It also implies an institutional role for journalists as a fourth estate, a body that exists apart from government and large interest groups (wikipedia). He, however, argues that such a quest for objectivity has led to a set of distortions in news coverage.
The inherent decisions in the manufacture of news always involve framing and bias. Rather than individual bias, the nature of organizations, the marketplace and the assumptions of news professionals are, oftentimes, taken into account.
Schudson suggests that professionalism, here referring to the professional ideology held by journalists, editors, news producers in quest for objectivity, contributes to several kinds of distortion in the news.
1. Schudson argues that news tends to be event-centered, action-centered, and person-centered. The news focuses on certain individuals or certain events rather than motivation or intention lied behind the scenes. It changes the news to a certain story because of the absence of the complicated and essential factors in the scene, simplifying complex social processes in ways that emphasize melodrama. A complex set of phenomena is turned into a morality tale or a battle between antagonists, often between good guys and bad guys.
2. Holding a belief that there are two sides to every story, news tends to focus on conflict, battle, dissension. This results in a plethora of bad news. Schudson claims that reporters will improve their careers more quickly by uncovering scandal than by recording achievements; they will burnish their reputations more by writing with an edge or an attitude than by writing with cool and scientific detachment. Moreover, he argues that the media made judgments and those judgments were more often negative than positive. The news instinct is triggered by things going badly (and from the belief that good news isn’t news). As Tamar Liebes has pointed out, “Western journalism is a social warning system, exposing the exception rather than the rule, the deviant rather than the norm, disorder rather than order, dissonance rather than harmony” (Schudson, p. 50). Even in instances of relative calm, there is a tendency for news to appear as conflicts.
The following two distortions are more relevant to political reporting:
3. There has been a trend for news to lay its emphasis on strategy and tactics, political technique rather than policy outcome, in coverage of politics. For example, news coverage focuses on the horse race in campaign coverage. It may further emphasize the insider speculation about what this tactic means, what it will cost, what it might win for a specific candidate. This results in a reliance of journalists on experts who can speak to these “insider” analytical issues.
4. The choice of speaks in the news can shape the news and consequently, how readers perceive it. Legitimate public sources, including government officials and experts which are regarded as “reliable” and “relevant” with the subjects of the news, shape and frame the events being reported. Since news is mainly based on sources, it is important for us to pay attention to news sources. To grasp a larger picture of the event, we should ask ourselves when reading news: who speaks? What aspects of the story are being told?
An understanding of these distortions in the news can help readers to see through policy announcements and rhetorical appeals and their focuses on strategies and tactics.
Gilbert Ka Shing Chan