What is the point of journalism? This is a question I, and many other journalists, think about frequently. Over the six years that I have been following the news, I have seen a change in the driving forces behind journalism. I have watched as media outlets go from focusing on telling the truth to focusing on holding people to account. I want to stress that holding people accountable is not a bad thing, by any stretch of the imagination, but when it becomes the priority over telling the truth, it creates an opportunity for bias to become prevalent.
On the surface, it seems harmless. In a society where the rich and powerful, especially politicians, can seemingly get away with whatever they want, journalism is a force that has the power to keep the powerful in check.
But that power can be misused. Holding to account is only necessary when there is wrongdoing. There has been a seeking for wrongdoing among media outlets that see their goals as solely to hold people to account. AllSides, a media watchdog organization, puts out a media bias chart categorizing major media outlets into five categories: Left, Lean Left, Center, Lean Right, and Right.
It is truly shocking the bias shown in some of the biggest outlets. ABC News, The New York Times, CBS News, and CNN are just some of the biggest media outlets in the Lean Left category. Other organizations, like the Associated Press (AP) and MS Now (formerly MSNBC) are even further in the Left category. On the other side of the isle, outlets like RealClear Politics, The Daily Mail, the New York Post, and the National Review fall into the Lean Right category, while another media giant, Fox News, can be found in the Right category. What is truly disturbing to me is that most of these outlets claim to be fact based and unbiased.
These outlets, and many more, have become problem seekers instead of truthtellers. I am not saying that we shouldn’t try and hold the rich and powerful accountable for their actions, but making holding people accountable a primary focus naturally skews reporting, and makes it easier for bias to creep in.
In past events, outlets like FOX News over-covered events like presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s email servers. While it was news and important to report on, over-reporting and misleading reporting shows a goal of holding someone accountable for something that wasn’t as major as they made it out to be.
It goes both ways, however. In the same election, there was widespread coverage of alleged collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia. While again, this was important to report on, the over-reporting and lens that many media outlets used to share the story was misleading.
Even more recently, it is seen in the government documents on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Left leaning media outlets highlight the involvement of President Trump with Epstein, while glossing over the high level Democratic politicians also mentioned frequently in the Epstein files. Right leaning outlets do the inverse; highlighting the involvement of Democrats while downplaying the involvement of President Trump.
The fact of bias is that it is, for the most part, only harmful when the bias is presented as truth. Almost every major outlet claims to be fact-based and non-biased, and that is what causes issues. People watch, read, listen to these outlets with the preconceived notion that they tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Everyone has biases. The mark of a good journalist is their ability to push down the bias and be completely honest. Searching for problems allows for bias to creep in. Journalists need to make a return to the truth as our top goal in order to continue to effectively do the important work we do.
