Social Media Bias Essay

The discussion of bias in overall mass media is a difficult one to have, simply because of the huge variety of news organizations and social media, all with their political agendas. Yet despite this inherent difficulty, many Republicans and some Democrats believe that there is a bias in mass media for the political party opposite of their own. Every time Conservatives or Liberals claim a bias in mass media, they are typically selecting one specific anecdote in which a political bias was demonstrated, and then stating that one example is evidence of a bias trend in all media. This is an emotional response and not a logical one. Although a single (or even a few) example(s) of bias from a news organization or social media platform may be sufficient to show that a specific organization or platform may be predisposed towards a political party, it is insane to state that all media must have a bias for that political party based on that one example. After all, no sane Conservative would claim that Fox News or Newsmax are in favor of Democrat ideologies in the same way no Liberal would claim that CNN or MSNBC are in favor of Republican ideologies. As stated previously, this is merely an emotional response created by a perceived feeling of censorship or being unfairly moderated as opposed to the other side of the aisle. Thus, it is impossible to factually claim that most of all media are prejudiced towards one political party over the other.

Even though it is nonsensical to believe that most media is predisposed towards a political party, it is certainly true that individual news organizations and social media companies are often biased. Media companies often utilize the journalistic approach of sensationalism, which as a practice promotes hyperbole, buzzwords, and on uncommon occasions lies. This practice in conjunction with the method of appealing to your audience results in extremely partisan media. And this makes sense from a financial standpoint. After all, drama sells, which is why sensationalism is such a popular and effective tool of journalism, despite being often frowned upon by many journalists. Oftentimes, the same reason people watch ‘reality’ TV shows such as Keeping Up With The Kardashians is the same reason why people often watch extremely partisan news stations, that being that drama-filled arguments and debates are extremely entertaining. The tactic of appealing to one’s audience is also smart financially, but it commonly creates an “us against them mentality”, which leaves little room for neutral or nonpartisan reporting. These tactics of sensationalism and appealing to your audience often form very partisan and polarizing media organizations, which very well might be the cause of why so many people believe the media to be unfairly biased towards one party or another. These people may become so used to such polarizing, partisan news, that when they encounter news from companies either closer to the center of the political spectrum or from companies that support the opposite political party; that news seems completely and utterly biased because of how it is formatted or presented conflicts with their existing worldview. This makes sense from a logical standpoint as people rarely recognize their own biases and thus it is unlikely that a person would recognize the biases of a news organization that promotes information that they agree with, while they would have no such problem with media that does not promote their political beliefs. These people simply build up a tolerance to extremely partisan news from the political party they support whereas when these people encounter more neutral news or news from the other political party, they will have no such built-up tolerance towards it. The “us against them” mentality created by many partisan news organizations also exacerbates this issue because it causes individuals to become more unlikely to address their own bias and the bias of the media they consume. After all, they only hear about the opposition’s wrongdoings. Even when presented with undeniable wrongdoings of their political party by the opposite, these people will be more unlikely to believe it because it’s presented by the opposition and not typically by news organizations that support their beliefs. And because they are appealing to their audience, partisan news organizations are unlikely to report on the wrongdoings of the party they and their audience support, resulting in more biased media. After all, the audience of Fox News does not want to hear about the misconduct of Donald Trump in the same way audiences of CNN do not want to hear about the misconduct of Joe Biden, so CNN and Fox News deliberately do not report on such things because it would alienate their audience, who are often so used to only hearing what is wrong with the other party and not their own.

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It is important to identify specific examples of media bias for an individual to find the unbiased truth. A recent example of media bias is by CNN in response to the George Floyd protests riots of 2020. An article titled “Tens of thousands march in largest George Floyd protests so far in the US” published on June 6, 2020, is very biased in favor of the protestors rioters, which makes sense as most of these individuals were Democrats protesting police brutality. CNN demonstrates their bias by using phrases such as “mostly peaceful protest rallies” and “sometimes violent unrest” (Chavez), and only indirectly mentioning the rioting that also took place. They do not mention or detail the arson, looting, and murders that occurred. Nor do they include any photos of the violence caused by rioters, but they do include photos of police officers shooting tear gas (conveniently leaving out who or what the officer was firing at and only showing him shooting it). The words riots or rioters are not mentioned once in the article and all the photos of the protests only demonstrate the peaceful side and not the equally vast amount of violence that occurred by the rioters. In contrast, an article posted by CNN in June 2021 titled “ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY Paths to Insurrection” is very biased against the protestors rioters of the Capitol Riots (who were Pro-Trump Republicans). It uses words and phrases such as “raucous”, “deadly riot”, “landmark stain”, and “violent uprising” (Kuznia) to categorize the situation. It is especially hypocritical of CNN to use a different word choice as the death toll of the 2020 riots far exceeded that of the Capitol Riots. According to a Forbes article by Jemima McEvoy, 19 people died directly because of the rioting (only direct causes such as being shot, hit with a car, etc., and not things such as drug overdoses or natural causes like heart attacks or strokes), and according to the New York Times, only two people died directly as a result of the Capitol Riots with the first being Ashli Babbitt who was a Pro-Trump supporter who was shot by a police officer and Rosanne Boyland who was supposedly trampled to death (Cameron). Several natural deaths also occurred such as heart attacks strokes and later suicides, which are often erroneously counted for in the Capitol Riot death toll, which creates fatality numbers of 6 or 7, unlike the 2020 riot death toll, which only includes direct deaths as previously stated. Additionally, although Rosanne Boyland’s death was originally attributed to being trampled, according to CNN, the DC medical examiner determined that the actual cause of death was an amphetamine overdose and that she was trampled after her death (Was protester Rosanne Boyland crushed to death during the events of Jan. 6?). This brings the actual direct death toll of the Capitol Riots down to 1 person compared to the direct death toll of 19 of the 2020 riots. This is without even mentioning the financial cost difference between the two, with NPR reporting the official cost of the Capitol Riots to be 30 million (Chappell), whereas according to the Washington Times, the cost of the 2020 riots ranges from 1 to 2 billion dollars (Harper). None of this is to excuse or diminish the terrible actions of those at the Capitol in 2021, but it does demonstrate that CNN is very picky in how they portray a riot depending on whether the riot was done by CNN’s audience. CNN’s hypocrisy is demonstrated by its different biased approach to two very similar situations; primarily utilizing words with positive connotations for the 2020 riots and primarily using vernacular with negative connotations for the Capital Riots of 2021. Now the point of these examples is not to specifically target CNN as this example was chosen simply because it is one of the biggest examples of media bias in recent history. Fox News could just as easily be given as an example as they did the opposite of CNN, ignoring almost all the peaceful 2020 protests in favor of focusing mostly on the riots and also originally referring to the Capital Riots as protests (though they have since started calling them for what they were). This clear media bias by two major news sources such as Fox News and CNN as well as other news organizations has led to drastic issues in the world of journalism.

Media bias by individual news sources in recent years has had major effects on the public’s belief in media. Interestingly, however, there is a marked difference between how Republicans and Democrats have responded to increasingly partisan media. Pew Research Center randomly polled Americans in 2021 and discovered that 78% of Democrats have “a lot” or “some” trust in the factualness of national news organizations, which contrasts heavily against Republicans as only 35% of Republicans had “a lot” or “some” trust in the same organizations (Gottfried and Liedke).