summatus mentis

I find myself on a constant quest for new information, be it news, theories, whatever. Ultimately, I don’t really care what it is, but I want to know what’s happening, and I want to know it as soon as possible. Generally speaking, people get their information from the media. Whether it’s newspapers, watching news on tv, reading current events blogs, or listening to informational radio, people get their information from somewhere.

Because of this, the information people are fed has an inherent bias to it. It’s impossible for a writer to be completely objective, regardless of how hard they try. In order to be truly objective, the human element needs to be removed from something, because as humans, we process everything we’re told. So even in regurgitating news, we’re unintentionally passing on our own interpretation of what we were just told. It is arguably possible for people to move past the small bias that stems from an attempt to be objective (vs. a very large bias when no attempt to be objective is made), but it’s important to remember that there will always be bias.

However, there seems to be something else at play in the mainstream media. Yes, clearly there is bias, this has been established. However, it seems that certain types of media, particularly mainstream media, have other prioritites. Most mainstream news organizations are multi-national corporations. Take MSNBC for instance. It used to just be NBC. National Broacasting Corporation. Then deal was made with Microsoft, and the two corporations became partners, and MSNBC was born. Does this matter in the long run? Perhaps not, it’s conceivable that Microsoft just wanted name recognition and a news service for their search engine. However, it’s also conceivable (but perhaps unlikely) that Microsoft has a vested interest in the news that gets put out by MSNBC. I’m not insinuating that Microsoft is censoring news stories, or even that they’re actively putting “spin” on the news being reported. Would a writer for MSNBC tend towards writing favorably when discussing NBC or Microsoft, if only because these two partnered companies pay the writer?

Granted, this is all conjecture, and it sounds a bit “conspiracy-theorist”, but take it as an exercise for the reader. It seems that news sources aligning themselves with other organizations, even if it’s only monetarily, puts another level of inherent bias in the news, as presented to the consumer. Furthermore, these mainstream media companies are just that, companies. The bottom line of a company is to turn a profit. For media companies, this means maintaining subscribers, funding yourself with advertisements, etc. On a national level, in order to maintain subscribers/users, there is obviously a balance between what is actually happening, and what your readers care about. If readers stop caring about what a company is printing, the readers stop reading.

The independence of any news source is crucial to the ability of a news source to be objective. As stated, once a news source aligns itself with an organization or viewpoint, whether it’s monetarily, acting as a soap box for the organization or viewpoint, or even taking what the organization or viewpoint professes at face value, and re-reporting this, the objectivity is lessened. The mandate of any news source is to present the news to the public, in a “fair and balanced” (please ignore the Fox News connotation, as they are anything but) manner. A news source cannot, and should not claim to maintain a level of objectivity while aligned with any organization. Should an organization want to put their own subjective spin on what is happening within the organization, said organization perfectly capable or putting out their own news.

Furthermore, there’s an argument to be made that in the pursuit of objectivity, a news source should be playing devils advocate and asking the dissenting questions. It is arguably the job of a news source to question everything in public discourse, and act as a watchdog over things like government, corporations and businesses, police, politicians, and ultimately even the people themselves. This is the mandate of a news source, and nothing that I’ve seen has ever met this goal.

Consider for a moment the recent presidential election. The mainstream media, generally, was very pro-obama. I acknowledge, so was I. However, it seemed that the majority of what was being said about Obama, was what Obama’s campaign wanted said. No, I’m not insinuating that Obama’s campaign told the mainstream media exactly what to print. However, it does seem that the media took a majority of what was said at face value. I consider myself very left-leaning, but one has to wonder where the concept of “liberal media bias” stems from. Arguably, the mainstream media was fairly biased in favor of Obama (presumably because the previous 8 years left everyone jaded). This isn’t objectivity. This level of bias is a disservice to the public, to the Obama administration, and ultimately, to the news companies themselves.