The media work best when they admit that they have a bias

Your trash is my treasure. Your passion is my disdain. Just because you don’t recognize my fear doesn’t mean I’m irrational. Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean “they’re” not out to get me.

Erin Chapman identifies subjectivity in our news, and particularly a conservative imagery subjectivity among our “three major” news sources.

I don’t restrict myself to only these, but it’s a little disconcerting to find such a topic shortchanged.

It’s interesting to see the value of imagery in the news. It’s also beneficial to see how facts and figures are used, twisted and ignored.

USA Today reported “PACS spent record $416M on vote” and included a graph listing the top two House Republicans receiving PAC money by percentage of PAC and federal candidate donations, followed by the top three Democrats.

There are a few ways to present the data, and the one chosen shows the highest percentages for Republicans. This data seems to be ordered specifically to rank the Republicans as the greater offenders. Actually, it’s questionable whether there is an offense, but I digress.

Listed by amount, one Republican would still lead by a small margin, the three Democrats would follow, ending with the other Republican in fifth.

Merging the amounts for the top two Democrats eclipses the two Republicans together by nearly the amount for the second Republican, about $500,000. This excludes the amount for the third Democrat.

On the next-to-last paragraph, the article finally admits to a damning fact. Of 175 Congressmen on the FEC report, 126 were Democrats, 49 Republicans.

When I watch or hear the news, I don’t care that they’re biased, only that they admit it. Whatever else he is, Rush is public about his bias. Many aren’t so honest.

I like subjectivism and context, but obfuscation and slant are yellow and dishonest. Word choice can tell us plenty about bias. I hear slant and innuendo all the time in the news. If you don’t, it must be your slant as well.

Figures are made to lie, and liars still figure.

David House
IU employee