Posted by: sharnenblarnen on: July 13, 2011
People need to be challenged to create their own opinions. Unbiased news is necessary because people must draw their own conclusions, not simply mimic the opinions of others.
Biased news is popular because people are too lazy or don’t have time to create their own opinions and draw conclusions on the news themselves.
Opinion has no place in journalism, save for in the Opinion or Editorial section. It is not necessary to share bias to create a good story. In fact, the point is to tell the facts, and facts can be (and usually are) interesting. Quotes, images, videos: these are 80% or more of news stories, and they are fascinating because they share the actions, reactions and emotions of people.
A newspaper’s purpose is not to stand out from other newspapers by creating an opinion or a bias different from others, but simply to portray the truth to its audience. If anything, a newspaper can stand out from other newspapers by being the most accurate, objective and comprehensive that is reasonably possible.
The purpose of journalism is not to entertain, but to inform.
Backstory on this rant: Today at WJMC we filmed with the Washington Journal for C-SPAN, along with Brian Lamb of C-SPAN.
During Brian Lamb’s filming, he asked us what role opinion and bias plays in the news today. Many of my peers said that they believe bias plays a part in news, or opinion is necessary for news to be interesting. This was appalling to me. Since when has the purpose of news been to entertain? I honestly can’t understand why someone would believe that biased news was a good thing. If anything, news stations or publications that publish biased or opinionated news are manipulating their audience. They’re playing on the fact that people are too busy or too lazy to form their own opinions, and so they form it for them, and thus increase the amount of money being dropped into their pockets.
Rather than flipping to Fox News or some other obviously biased and often inappropriate news station or publication, take the time to formulate your own opinion and support a publication that does its duty in the world of journalism: telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Side note: for unbiased news check out the Associated Press, mother of all publications.
