Bias isn't the same as lying. Even the letters I write to my friends and family are biased. I take into account their prejudices and feelings. I don't want to be rude. Besides, if I offend them too much they'll stop reading. What's the good in that?
The modern attitude though tends to be "it's impossible to be perfectly unbiased. There is…
Bias isn't the same as lying. Even the letters I write to my friends and family are biased. I take into account their prejudices and feelings. I don't want to be rude. Besides, if I offend them too much they'll stop reading. What's the good in that?
The modern attitude though tends to be "it's impossible to be perfectly unbiased. There is no such thing as truth, only texts! So I may as well lie my ass off." While this can be effective it's not what I'm looking for. There may not be such a thing as truth, but you can get a lot closer if you try.
I expect all my sources to be biased but minimally so. If they are funded by X then they aren't going to criticize X. That's just life. That's one reason it is so important that funding be disclosed openly. A practice that sadly has fallen into abeyance.
If someone like the Guardian wants to be partisan, if that's what sells, fine, as long as they are open about it. I don't have to read it, and I don't. (Along with many other such sources.)
In fact, bias in the news is, in consequence, the same thing as lying.
The whole exercise of news journalism is about having the objectivity to understand the truth—including the truth about what you don’t know—and the principle to publish according to that objective understanding.
If you don’t exercise the objectivity, you can’t exercise the principle.
It's a timeless declaration of ethics. News practitioners throughout time have fluctuated greatly in their respect for ethics, including throughout the 20th century. Look into Operation Mockingbird, for starters, among many other widespread ethical lapses among so-called journalists in the 20th century.
Bias isn't the same as lying. Even the letters I write to my friends and family are biased. I take into account their prejudices and feelings. I don't want to be rude. Besides, if I offend them too much they'll stop reading. What's the good in that?
The modern attitude though tends to be "it's impossible to be perfectly unbiased. There is no such thing as truth, only texts! So I may as well lie my ass off." While this can be effective it's not what I'm looking for. There may not be such a thing as truth, but you can get a lot closer if you try.
I expect all my sources to be biased but minimally so. If they are funded by X then they aren't going to criticize X. That's just life. That's one reason it is so important that funding be disclosed openly. A practice that sadly has fallen into abeyance.
If someone like the Guardian wants to be partisan, if that's what sells, fine, as long as they are open about it. I don't have to read it, and I don't. (Along with many other such sources.)
In fact, bias in the news is, in consequence, the same thing as lying.
The whole exercise of news journalism is about having the objectivity to understand the truth—including the truth about what you don’t know—and the principle to publish according to that objective understanding.
If you don’t exercise the objectivity, you can’t exercise the principle.
This seems to me quite 20th century.
It's a timeless declaration of ethics. News practitioners throughout time have fluctuated greatly in their respect for ethics, including throughout the 20th century. Look into Operation Mockingbird, for starters, among many other widespread ethical lapses among so-called journalists in the 20th century.