Confirmation Bias, Regional Elitism, and Narrative Seeking J-School Students Impede Quest for Unbiased Journalism…
Is there such a thing as “unbiased journalism?” Should there be? Where is it found?
by Foster Kedzie III
First, we should distinguish between opinion journalism (even if its characterized as entertainment) and reporting. Opinion journalists are supposed to have opinions. So accusing them of bias is like accusing a fish of being wet. That doesn’t mean that they can’t break news (or mangle the underlying facts that form the premises for their opinions). Its just silly to accuse them of being unfair. That’s their job.
But with regard to the regular press—I’ve had some fairly regular contact with the press through my current and past jobs, and have a few extended family members and close friends who work in the journalism field. And my experience is that most reporters do their darndest to play it as straight as they can, and to really be fair. However, being human beings, they certainly bring their biases to the table, even if they try not to be beholden to them.
Most of the time, it tends to express itself through what is referred to as “confirmation bias.” That is, if they are presented with a “fact” that doesn’t seem right to them, they’ll be skeptical and either not report it, or go to great lengths to confirm it before reporting it. However, if they are presented with a “fact” that seems obvious, or fits with the narrative that’s already in their heads (they don’t call them “stories” for nothing—the theory is that nobody wants to read a laundry list, they want to hear a story), they are less likely to question it.
And like most other professions, the shared confirmation bias arises from a certain level of group-think, common perspective and peer pressure. By that I mean, something like “well, its OBVIOUS that fact “A” is true, and if you don’t agree with me, well, I have to challenge your professional judgment.” Or nobody even questions fact “A,” because everyone has the same perspective. Nobody wants to be isolated or though of as weird or too different, much less within their profession where it can hurt their career.
Consequently, I personally think the whole issue of “corporate ownership” issue isn’t entirely relevant. Again, my experience (and in talking with others who are more deeply entrenched in the field) is that the fact that “corporations” own them doesn’t make a huge difference on the reporting side. Sure, I can probably find some anecdotes here and there where it does make a difference, but the plural of anecdote isn’t data.
I think what is probably more salient is the geographic location of most of the press—particularly the broadcast media. And most of the national broadcast media (and I’ll include the New York Times and the Washington Post in this category, because the broadcast media often look to those papers when setting out their stories for the day), which sets the press agenda is based in the Northeast—the New York-Washington corridor in particular. Accordingly, I think the source of confirmation bias and group-think comes more from a regional mindset. Seeing the perspective of people from outside of the region doesn’t come as easily—for that matter, I think there is a tendency to see folks from outside that region as hicks, quaint, colorful, etc…and not as real human beings. If you pressed reporters on that, they’d deny that and would mean it, but I think its mostly unconscious.
How does that end up expressing itself? I think there are a few assumptions that are shared, for example (and I’m not commenting on whether they are good things or not—just laying out what some of the assumptions are):
1. Guns are bad and should be regulated or banned.
2. Pro-Choice.
3. Religion is quaint, dangerous, irrational, or simply interesting from a distance.
4. Pro-free trade.
5. Washington and New York are really important. Stuff that happens in other places isn’t as important.
6. International and cosmopolitan (i.e. we can learn a lot from foreigners on a whole range of things).
7. Pro-immigration (including regularizing illegal or undocumented immigrants—however you want to characterize them).
8. Pro-environmentalist (all this personal experience—I’ve played on the biases more than once).
9. Pro-Democrat (the polls they’ve done on the press clearly show that they are overwhelmingly sympathetic to the Democratic party and vote that way—way beyond the general population.) I’m not saying that they are big boosters for the party intentionally. That’s just where the confirmation bias tends to go—they are more likely to question an assertion from a Republican than a Democrat. And they are more likely to label certain Republicans as “Arch-Conservatives” than certain “comparable” Democrats as “Arch-Liberals” (there are studies—I can look em up if you really want.) And just for the record—no, I’m not interested in getting into a party argument at this time.
In other words, the national press tends to have an urban northeast perspective. And the upper echelons are more likely to have an Upper West Side of Manhattan perspective. And when I think of Upper West Side of Manhattan, I think of the famous line (apparently questionably) attributed to the New York Times movie journalist Pauline Kael, who supposedly said after Nixon won in 1972, “How could Nixon have won? Everyone I know voted for McGovern.” There’s a fine example of confirmation bias.
Where do I think the press has gone wrong in recent years? I personally think its gotten too beholden to the Journalism schools. From what I understand, it has resulted in fewer instances of “just making it up” and greater professionalism—we tend to romanticize the past because we didn’t have the ability to fact check the press the way we do now. However, because the journalists tend to come from a few such “choke-points,” it tends to create even more cultural group-think and confirmation bias then would normally exist in the profession (as it does in any profession—every profession has its common biases). Furthermore, my sense is that the journalism schools stress the importance of narrative, which means reporters are more likely to go into a situation with a narrative (story) in mind already, or with the intention of finding one. And I understand why they do that, but it leads to certain “facts” being dismissed or added based on whether they fit the narrative or not. Again, I don’t think its nefarious or a big conspiracy—but it does lend itself to making a cultural confirmation bias even worse.
A good example was the Duke Lacrosse case. The narrative was great—bunch of Southern redneck jocks who are the big men on campus hire a black stripper and rape her. The story has everything—a poor minority woman, privileged white men at an elite university, a bunch of jocks who are probably on steroids. Stories came out about how Lacrosse players tend to be bullies, the privilege of athletes on campus, the rocky relations between town and gown in a Southern town. But as we all know now, the story was false, and the DA knew it almost from the beginning. And because some facts didn’t fit the narrative (one of the accused was captured on camera in front of an ATM at the time of the alleged assault) tended to get downplayed (at first). Its not that the press was trying to consciously railroad these guys—its that the narrative resulted in confirmation bias.
And now you have another story about a Lacrosse player killing his girlfriend (another Lacrosse player). This time, it sounds like there’s little question he did it. So what case does the press compare it too? The Duke Lacrosse case, not a case where one student athlete killed another student athlete. Why? Probably because they both feed a common narrative of pampered athletes abusing others (even though in the first instance the scandal turned out to not be the alleged assault, but rather the false testimony and abusive actions taken by the DA, who later confessed to everything).
Anyways, that’s one man’s opinion from experience and hearing stories from people “in the know” (and no, I’m not referring to one person in particular that some of you may be thinking of that I’m related to—we rarely talk shop. I have other friends who are in the belly of the beasts, and the stories I tend to hear are universal).
