Reading Between the Lines

In today's world, media plays a pivotal role in shaping our understanding of political issues. The way information is presented can be manipulated and two stories of the same event can be drastically different. With political polarization on the rise in the United States, many people are uninterested in hearing other viewpoints. This is a huge issue within our society as allowing yourself to hear other opinions not only promotes tolerance but also prevents extremist views. Media has not often been on our side with this matter as many major news outlets produce stories heavily filtered with bias. Bias in media can undermine the trust of the people, reinforce existing beliefs, increase polarization, and spread misinformation. All things we would like to avoid as a society. 

Detection Through Controversial Issues

As mentioned previously here on Next Gen, spotting bias is not always easy. However, an easy way to practice is through reading stories regarding controversial topics. These include abortion, gun control, immigration, and LGBTQ+ rights. Most major news outlets cover one or more of these topics daily. These subjects hold many extreme viewpoints and this is when it is easy to spot bias. For example, today I searched multiple major news outlets. I chose Fox News first and chose one of the articles on the main page which happened to be Poll Finds Americans Don't Think Biological Men Should Compete in Women's Sports. This story is obviously about transgender women and the controversy about which teams they should participate in. I then went to PBS News and CNN. Neither of these had main-page stories about transgender issues. After searching "transgender" in PBS News I came across a recent article titled Kansas to no longer Change Transgender People's birth certificates to reflect gender identities. This article is self-explanatory and CNN has not had any articles relating to the subject in a couple weeks. 

FOX News:

Although the article from Fox News does relay poll information it still shows some biased points. The biggest one I noticed is throughout this article the author refers to transgender women as biological men. Respecting someone's chosen pronouns in itself is a controversial topic and Fox News makes their view clear through their terminology and pronoun use in this article. One particular sentence in the article was a quote that was really a red flag for me. Riley Gaines, the director of the Riley Gaines Center at the Leadership Institute gives a quote that references the increase of transgender athletes in sports and ends with "But unfortunately, more girls will be injured, exploited in a locker room, and lose out on opportunities in the meantime." The problem with this is the underlying tone that connects transgender women and intentional harm against women. This article can be viewed as biased against Transgender rights. 

PBS News:

This article holds a different subject of no longer changing birth certificates for new gender identities. From the beginning of the article, the author uses the term "transgender people" and respects transgender terminology with correct pronouns. This article also provides quotes from someone who disagrees with the new policy in place, the Governor of Kansas. She expressed her disagreement with the act. The correct terminology as well as sourced disagreement with the law can be seen as a slight bias in favor of Transgender rights. The article also makes a connection to the law and negatively affecting those in the transgender community. 

Decide for Yourself

While both articles hold terms of bias, the bias in the Fox News article was much easier to pick up on in my opinion. However, we are shamelessly LGBTQ+ supporters here at Next Gen Politics so this could simply be my own bias in play even if I attempt to remove it. Overall the importance of comparing these two articles is that they clearly have very different tones/views regarding a common controversial topic. 

Being able to separate bias from the information given to you can allow you to consume media normally and not fall victim to echo chambers. If people were more comfortable with identifying potentially biased information they would likely explore different news outlets that may cover different subjects. So learn how!

LGBTQ+ rights are also obviously a hot topic in recent politics. They will also likely be heavily used in upcoming political campaigns. Educate yourself on the topic and decide which view is for you, so you can vote accordingly when the time comes. 

Here is a great additional resource that can allow you to see American's opinions on the bias of our media: Biased News Oulets According to Americans