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December 07, 2006
Real Media Bias
Dean Baker makes an important point on the ridiculously reductive "bias in the media" conversation. While scores of partisans and watchdogs pore over every anchor utterance watching for hints of partisanship, almost no attention is offered to the non-partisan biases that nevertheless heavily impact the political world. As Baker puts it:
How about comparing the number of articles that refer to the Social Security "crisis" or the need to fix Social Security, relative to the number of stories that refer to the need to fix the country's health care system? I don't know any economist who does not believe that the health care system poses a far more serious threat to the country's economy and the federal budget, yet the media give health care reform a small fraction of the attention they give the long-term shortfall projected for Social Security.
One could argue that politicians don't talk about health care reform, but this raises a cause and effect issue. Politicians do try to bring up health care reform (e.g. dozens of members of Congress have signed on to a bill that would establish a universal Medicare system), but they are generally ignored or ridiculed by the media. Since politicians don't like being ignored or ridiculed, they opt not to talk about the issues that the media doesn't want them to talk about, so they go back to the Social Security crisis. [...]
The biggest problem with bias in the media, at least in its coverage of economics, is the way in which it narrows the frame of debate, not its word choice, although I could come up with a few key phrases here also (e.g. "free trade").
I might quibble with the specific example Baker uses -- there's a fair amount of reporting on a health system in crisis, it's just not constructively framed -- but the cumulative effect of the media's slanted economic reporting is to push the actual center in American politics to the right, which limits the range of political debate and disadvantages Democrats in a more fundamental way than leaving the "ic" off of "Democrat."
Whether you think there's a political bias in American reporting, it's undoubtedly true that there's a management bias that advantages employers over unions. Whether you think the media accepts the reality of abortion, they obviously spend excess time on isolated cases of entitlement fraud, making Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security seems far more misused and inefficient than any actual expert believes they are. Whether you think Canada is a good health care system, the media's (inaccurate) attention to their wait times gives a very different picture of universal health care systems than would a focus on their total absence of uninsured and massive per capita savings. These are very real examples of bias, and rather than disadvantaging a particular party, they recenter the American consensus, usually to the right. It's a real problem.
December 7, 2006 in Media | Permalink
Comments
I don't know that "bias" is quite the word to refer to what you are describing... I think the problem in all these cases (and I've been doing a lot of thinking about these big picture things myself, lately) is that we're getting discrete bits of stories that need larger, more comprehensive overviews - stories that tie together the health care narrative into a sense of the bigger picture, that dive into the whole pictures of where Social Security stands... and to that I'd had the state of public housing (particularly post-Katrina) and that of public education. I think one thing that's happened in the past six years - and part of a longer trend really - is doing surface, bite-sized looks at issues of the day that distort the whole picture - it's true, as they will say on the 5 o'clock news somewhere tonight that Suzy not being able to get health insurance is a bad thing. It's also not the whole story, and we need less Suzy and more big picture. (Immigration is another good example of this, as people focus on fences and enforcement and not asking harder questions about the poor, excessively beaurocratic nightmare at INS.)
But what news operation is built for these longer, in-depth stories, right now? And why are we finding that acceptable? My point is, that's not bias, it's something much mroe fundamental, and I'm not sure it changes until we, as an audience, ask for more in depth examination of today's issues and less surface and slapdash. It's sloppy, and it's doing everyone a disservice.
Posted by: weboy | Dec 7, 2006 11:37:51 AM
Baker's main example isn't actually a good one, as you say, and I can't figure out his other example.
Whether you think there's a political bias in American reporting, it's undoubtedly true that there's a management bias that advantages employers over unions.
I'm not sure I understand how you mean this. If you mean that editors and publishers have a management bias, that would make sense. Of course, their reporters would have the opposite bias. If you mean that there is a clear bias in the product, I could use a little evidence on that, or at least a fuller explanation.
they obviously spend excess time on isolated cases of entitlement fraud, making Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security seems far more misused and inefficient than any actual expert believes they are.
This would be part of the "bad news" bias. But there is arguably also a disproportionate focus on the failures of private plans, which apparently exist solely to delay treatment and ultimately torture and kill their customers (yes, I exaggerate).
The bad news in Canada is likewise countered to some extent by the incredible amount of coverage of Canada as a source of cheap drugs, which makes it seem like every sick elderly person with an RV buys their drugs in our neighboring pharmaceutical paradise.
You could be right about an overall bias, Ezra, but it isn't plain to me that you are.
Posted by: Sanpete | Dec 7, 2006 12:05:05 PM
Here's some info on anti-union bias. There've been a number of studies, so just google around. As for health care, you're right about coverage of private plans: As I said, the media's reporting on this isn't constructive in any way -- it just argues that everything blows.
Posted by: Ezra | Dec 7, 2006 12:26:37 PM
Ezra, the link you provide appears to be no more than another example of the "bad news" bias. The same bias applies to coverage of management, which is portrayed as greedy, out of touch and corrupt. Everyone gets trashed. I don't see a rightward bias myself, only the non-constructive bias you also speak of. That probably has something to do not only with the greater public interest in bad news, but also with the worry that constructive coverage might more easily be construed as advocacy.
Posted by: Sanpete | Dec 7, 2006 12:50:11 PM
this is friggin stupid whining.
Social Security got play b/c President Bush made it his centerpiece of his 2nd term of domestic policy. Of course reporters are gonna cover SS more b/c the President pushed it "spend all my political capital".
When Clinton pushed health care, guess what reporters wrote about then?
If you're the media, what's more important: The President's central issue or sideshow that gets the support of a few dozen minority congressmen?
Posted by: hederman | Dec 7, 2006 1:09:23 PM
the difference between people like Ezra and eople like me is this" He doesn't see this as a partisan Bias. It never occurs to him that when every "non partisan bias" the media exhibits has the effectof pushing the center to the right, that it's probably done for that very purpose.
The same with this fake 'balance'. It's just not the case that these people are trying to do their best and don't know how. They are trying ot help the Republicans, because that's who their paymasters support. Anyone who doesn't grasp this just isn't capable of seeing the larger picture.
Posted by: soullite | Dec 8, 2006 10:12:22 AM
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