{"id":803,"date":"2007-10-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chisnell.www216-119-142-248.a2hosted.com\/chizblog\/?p=803"},"modified":"2017-08-03T01:20:11","modified_gmt":"2017-08-03T01:20:11","slug":"news-and-neutrality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/news-and-neutrality\/","title":{"rendered":"News and Neutrality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Someone, perhaps Neil Postman, said that the media doesn’t tell\u00a0us what to think, but it tells us what to think about.\u00a0 In the early US, many journalists styled themselves as “Watchdogs for Democracy,” charged with investigating corruption and protecting human rights through the press. Later, journalists called themselves “objective,” claiming that they would merely \"\"report the events of the world without judgment. Many of our corporate media still make this claim, crying foul if anyone suggests they have prejudice or bias.<\/p>\n

As an experiment, then, I perused what four of our major news corporations published as news on the home pages of their internet sites.\u00a0 Leaving out editorials, celebrity and sports coverage, and advertising, whatever is left–news–might or might not be objective.\u00a0 I will leave it to you to decide what findings are here, what is valid, or if you wish to carry out this analysis in a more long-term and scientific way.<\/p>\n

Sampling of Internet Home Pages of Four Major Networks:\u00a0Numbers of News Stories<\/strong><\/h3>\n
30 September 2007<\/strong><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n\n

FOX<\/h3>\n<\/td>\n

\n

MSNBC<\/h3>\n<\/td>\n

\n

BBC<\/h3>\n<\/td>\n

\n

CNN<\/h3>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Anti-Democrat<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n7<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Anti-Bush<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n0<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Neutral GOP<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n3<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Neutral\u00a0Dems<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n0<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
US Violence<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n13 (59%)<\/td>\n12 (48%)<\/td>\n3 (30%)<\/td>\n8 (42%)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
US Non-violent<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n9 (41%)<\/td>\n13 (52%)<\/td>\n7 (70%)<\/td>\n11 (58%)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Iraq<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n3<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Iran<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n5<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
World Violence<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n12 (100%)<\/td>\n15 (60%)<\/td>\n10 (40%)<\/td>\n5 (50%)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
World Non-Violent<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n\u00a00 (0%)<\/td>\n10 (40%)<\/td>\n15 (60%)<\/td>\n5 (50%)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Disease\/Health Fears<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n

\u00a09<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tech Fears<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n4<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Economic Fears<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n2<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Weather\/Environment Fears<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n1<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Civil Rights Fears<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n5<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Celebrity News<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n13<\/td>\n12<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Humor<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n1<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Advertising<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n9<\/td>\n11 disguised*<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Sports<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\nn\/a<\/td>\nn\/a<\/td>\nn\/a<\/td>\nn\/a<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Total News Stories<\/strong><\/td>\n73<\/td>\n71<\/td>\n42<\/td>\n43<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Total Negative Stories<\/strong><\/td>\n61 (84%)<\/td>\n45 (63%)<\/td>\n20 (48%)<\/td>\n23 (53%)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Total Non-Negative Stories<\/strong><\/td>\n12 (16%)<\/td>\n26 (37%)<\/td>\n22 (52%)<\/td>\n20 (47%)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

How did I determine the categories?\u00a0 Here are some notes on my thinking:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • “Anti” — the headline contained diction which implicitly or explicitly judged the event.\u00a0 For instance, one Fox story was titled “Butting In” for coverage of the Democratic strategies in Congress. In contrast, there were “neutral” stories which, by headlines anyway, covered the event without loaded language (“Debate over Dems Bill”).<\/li>\n
  • “Violent\/Non-violent” — The violent stories include crime, death, war, etc.,\u00a0 any story where humans abuse other humans.\u00a0 Non-violent is a far larger category which includes both positive stories (“Lost Woman Rescued After Four Days”) or stories not based on death and disease (“Fire Dept. Gets New Truck”).<\/li>\n
  • “Fears” — A category which specifically shows dangers, broad or individual in the particular area (“Brain-eating amoeba” or “Tropical Storm Could be Hurricane”).\u00a0 What’s interesting about these stories is that they are in addition to the “Violent” stories above.\u00a0 A new tech device on the market was categorized as “Non-violent” whereas “New Computer Virus” is tech fear.<\/li>\n
  • * As an observation, the advertising on MSNBC’s site is mostly formatted exactly as their news headlines are, making it difficult to distinguish.\u00a0 Buried amongst the other categories, they call ads “Sponsored Stories.”\u00a0 Hmm.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    What should I be thinking about?\u00a0 And with whom will I discuss it?<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Someone, perhaps Neil Postman, said that the media doesn’t tell\u00a0us what to think, but it tells us what to think about.\u00a0 In the early US, many journalists styled themselves as “Watchdogs for Democracy,” charged with investigating corruption and protecting human rights through the press. Later, journalists called themselves “objective,” claiming that they would merely report […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247,256],"tags":[338,339,328,340],"class_list":["post-803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chizblog","category-politics-and-ethics","tag-bias","tag-fear","tag-media","tag-neil-postman"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2007\/10\/negative-news-media.jpg?fit=600%2C224&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1642,"url":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/the-other-side-of-the-world\/","url_meta":{"origin":803,"position":0},"title":"The Other Side of the World","author":"Steve Chisnell","date":"2008 Jun 18","format":false,"excerpt":"I remember one adult who approached me during a China trip fundraiser for the team:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cYou ask them,\u201d she said. \u201cYou ask them\u00a0why.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0It was never quite clear to me what she wanted to know, but I surmised it. 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As I tell me Lit. of the Western World students, existentialists begin with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ChizBlog"","block_context":{"text":"ChizBlog","link":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/category\/chizblog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/04\/051309_0100_OnBeingLost1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":788,"url":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/the-challenge-of-finding-wisdom\/","url_meta":{"origin":803,"position":4},"title":"The Challenge of Finding Wisdom","author":"Steve Chisnell","date":"2015 Jan 24","format":false,"excerpt":"A response to Michael Godsey The following post was written in response to an article in The Atlantic. 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