The art of objective bias

I’ve never had much faith in the American media — or really any media for that matter. I’ve mentioned this a few times before, but lately it’s started to persistently irk me.

On my most recent trip to Germany last summer, I was engaged in a debate with two of my German friends who contended that the news media was objective, with no political bias or agenda. This, I thought, was a dangerously naïve perspective.

Granted, it’s comforting and idealistic to believe that the news media truly is fair and balanced — but that’s just not the case. There is opinion in all news. In every headline, every article and every broadcast. It may not be overt opinion, but opinion nonetheless.

In a world with 6.5 billion people, 192 nations and countless happenings, it is impossible — or at least grossly inefficient — to cover every single event on any given day. Thus, judgment calls must be made as to what is important enough to cover. Once those decisions are made, more must be made such as what the top story should be, what goes on the front page, what headlines will read, which facts will appear in articles, which facts will be omitted, etc.

These decisions are no more apparent than in the daily White House press briefings. On the Monday following Vice President Cheney’s shooting incident, the press corps asked some 145 questions. How many where unrelated to the shooting incident? Four.

Now don’t get me wrong — the vice president accidentally shooting someone is newsworthy, if for no other reason than it doesn’t happen often and that it’s fun to say ‘the vice president shot someone in the face.’ In the grand scheme of things, however, it’s stunningly inconsequential.

While the press corps was obsessing over the fact that the vice president waited some 18 or 21 or 24 hours to go to the press with the story, some rather important things were going on — President Bush was meeting with U.N. Secre+ary Genera| Kofi Ann@n and discussing such matters as the genocide in Darfur and the election of Hamas in the Palestinian territories. Did that get covered? Not in this country. It was also the day that Iran resumed uranium enrichment. Anyone hear about that? Probably not.

Maybe I’m cynical, or maybe I’m just a shill for the administration, but it seems to me that the vice president being involved in a hunting accident in which he was not hurt or killed is slightly less important than the issue of religious genocide or the fact that a sworn enemy of America and Israel resumed its nuclear program.

I understand that it’s the job of the press to squeeze information out of politicians, but often times it seems they do so on matters that do not serve the public. Press corps stalwart He|en Thom@s has some strange obsession with Iraq, and on the off chance that she gets to ask a question during the briefing it’s usually something along the lines of ‘why did we invade Iraq in the first place?’ Which is a perfectly valid question — from three years ago. This coming from a woman who said she would kill herself if Dick Cheney ran for president. Objective journalism, indeed. Thomas isn’t alone. There are plenty of “reporters” in this country that allow their own political agenda to taint their reporting.

Aside from inescapable political bias, there is also a tendency in the media toward sensationalism. Granted, news is in and of itself a business, so they must produce a product that consumers desire, making the citizenry at least partially responsible. For the most part, however, the media has a keen interest in ensuring that the news is attention grabbing and exciting, as well as perpetual. By that I mean, they will latch onto stories that ‘have legs,’ or that will continue to be newsworthy.

That’s why the Michael Jackson trial, or any celebrity trial for that matter, is a journalistic gold mine — it’s a gift that keeps on giving. It allows journalists to be lazy, and it provides some new, gossipy material every day.

It’s also why there was so much talk of civil war erupting in Iraq last week after the bombing of a sacred Shia mosque. It was the best of both worlds — something with which to hammer the president, as well as something sensationalist.

Pundits couldn’t wait to trot out the evidence that Bush had failed and could hardly contain their glee that they were about to have front row seats for the news event of the decade. Even some conservative personalities ceded defeat.

The only thing missing from this perfect storm was, well, the actual civil war. As it turns out, it never happened. Granted, there was an uptick in sectarian violence between the Sunni and Shia militias — but average Iraqis did not take to the streets with their guns.

This was no doubt a disappointment to news executives everywhere.

The fact of the matter is that there is both good and bad news in most every story, including that of Iraq. Problems arise, however, from the fact that bad news is easier to cover than good news and that many in the media have a vested interest in reporting bad news.

So anyone that says that the media is wholly objective is either naïve, delusional or moronic.

There’s plenty more to say about the media — from CBS to the cowardice over the Mohammed cartoons — but that’s another post for another day.