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They're All Biased!

Entry 2189, on 2021-12-03 at 11:30:32 (Rating 3, News)

I haven't made a secret of my distrust of, and lack of respect for, the media today. If you need any proof of how incompetent and/or corrupt they are, try the Gell-Mann Amnesia test (I discussed this effect in posts titled "Gell-Mann Amnesia" from 2019-06-18, "The Lying Media" from 2020-06-08, and "Gell-Mann Revisited" from 2021-04-19). Briefly, this involves looking for a news article on a subject you know a lot about, noting the numerous errors and omissions which you will almost inevitably find, and logically concluding that those same types of errors almost certainly occur in every other article, but you might not be expert enough to notice.

To be fair, some of these errors aren't particularly pernicious, they are just harmless inaccuracies as a result of naive or hurried reporting, but there must also be cases where the same effect happens but might have more significant consequences.

So there are two major sources of these problems: incompetence and bias. It can be hard to tell which of these two is the root cause of any problems you might find, but it is safe to assume that all news sources are biased, and the fact that many advertise themselves as the source of unbiased reporting, etc, just increases the reasons to distrust them.

There are some ways to minimise the negative effects of this though: first, don't fully trust anything you get from the media, and always leave room for doubt; and second, try to source your news from a variety of places with different biases.

Because the media in New Zealand - like most of the world - is hopelessly left-biased, I deliberately use some right-oriented sources as well. When people see me reading those, they often assume I am a right-wing, gun-toting, conspiracy theorist, but that is completely untrue - well, maybe not completely, but mostly!

I have always treated the stories in the right-oriented sources with some suspicion, because I assumed - based on the opinion of "most" people - that they were hugely biased; probably even more so than the left-oriented sources. Well, maybe not...

A report was recent released by the organisation "Media Bias", here in New Zealand. It listed 15 major news sources, and rated them based on bias. Not surprisingly (to me) 13 of the 15, including all the "mainstream" and most significant sources had a bias towards the left, some quite significantly, while the remaining two (which were small and less well known) had a right bias.

In fact, the right-oriented source I use for balance - which I assumed all along was crazy biased - turned out to be the third most unbiased source, behind two left-oriented sources which were slightly less biased.

So here are some scores for major media organisations, from least to most biased...

The New Zealand Herald: bias -5.2, reach 293,000.
The BFD: bias +6.8, reach 27,000.
TVNZ: bias -10.1, reach 48,000.
RNZ (Radio New Zealand): bias -10.1, reach 83,000.
Kiwiblog: bias +12.1, reach 6,000
Scoop: bias -14.3, reach 118,000.

In the bias scores (labelled "leaning" in the survey results) above a negative bias means left, and positive right. And the reach is the number of regular readers, viewers, or listeners.

So several things are clear from this: the media is overwhelmingly left biased; the left sources are just as biased, or more so, than the right; the left sources have a much greater influence than the right; and the total following for any of them, in a country of 5 million, isn't very high.

Now, you might say that this left bias is a good thing. After all, the left are more progressive, equitable, and compassionate than the right, aren't they? Well, that idea is very much open to debate. I could make a very good case to say the opposite is true, but even if you don't accept that, surely it is safe to have an open exchange of perspectives where the clear superiority of leftist ideas could be demonstrated. But as they like to say today: yeah, right!

There is another possible objection to this material: that is, who decides what is left and what is right, especially in a quantitative sense? The methodology and discussion of the survey acknowledges this point and they do try to document their methodology, so I am fairly happy with that, and I don't think that is a reasonable explanation for the apparently massive and obvious bias.

So I think every New Zealander should be reading the BFD. It is biased, sure, but not as biased as many mainstream publications are in the opposite direction, including New Zealand's state-funded radio and TV organisations (RNZ and TVNZ). So, incredibly, an informal, self-described right-oriented source is actually more reliable than most of the more traditionally respected sources. RNZ probably has the greatest overall level of respect in this country, but look at how biased they are!

Many people have accused the government of buying media influence through their funding which was supplied under the guise of assistance through the epidemic (although that is clearly untrue), but I don't necessarily accept that, because I have noticed this bias for years before that particular change happened. It can't possibly help, though.

There's one other factor I should mention here too. That is that the right sources I use, such as the BFD and the Daily Wire, clearly state their biases, where many of the other sources claim neutrality. So, again the right seems to have the high moral ground here, especially in terms of honesty.

When you consider all of these factors it is not surprising that the average person is so misinformed about many of the big issues of our time. I'm not saying that the media are always wrong, just that they are only showing one side of the story, and omit a lot of material which is very pertinent to the big discussions we should be having as a society.

Here are some examples: is climate change really an existential threat to humanity? Are lockdowns the best reaction to pandemics? Is there significant systemic racism in western society today? Is abortion naturally a woman's choice? If you answer any of these with an unequivocal "yes", then you are wrong. All of those isses have nuances not being acknowledged by the mainstream media.

Go and read some of those right sources for some balanced perspective. Don't just assume they are true, of course, but don't believe the left-biased mainstream media either!

Comment 1 (7060) by Anonymous on 2022-01-28 at 22:23:09:

Hmmm. Is this the Media Bias organisation you're referring to? 2018, the Columbia Journalism Review described Media Bias/Fact Check as an amateur attempt at categorizing media bias and Van Zandt as an "armchair media analyst".

Comment 2 (7061) by OJB on 2022-01-28 at 22:23:47:

I'm not sure if it's the same. To be honest I wasn't 100% confident in their credibility, but I'm not 100% sure about most organisations' credibility. The general methodology looked OK, although I didn't have a lot of time to check it. Also note that other media bias sites give very similar ratings. I am a bit doubtful about the BFD being as neutral as claimed, but it's so hard to establish where the center is now.

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