No News is Better Than Fox News

Citizens who read no news are more informed than those who view Fox News.

The Huffington Post reported on poll conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University. The results revealed that Fox viewers aren't informed about the government stability in the Middle East.

Also, the University of Maryland conducted a study last year "found that Fox News viewers were more likely to believe false information about politics".

The function of the media is to be a watchdog, inform the public, and remain objective. Clearly, Fox News is can't juggle all of these functions.

Fox drops its first ball with not informing the public on current events. Perhaps too much time is devoted to other programming, such as political analysis, because a majority of viewers couldn't answer questions about political unrest in Egypt and Syria.

Remaining objective is another short fall for Fox. Viewers need to rewire their brains after Fox exposure because they are more likely to believe false political information.

Although Fairleigh Dickinson's pollsters point out that this poll had less to do with political biases and agendas and more to do with quality of programming.

Misinformation is dangerous. It makes the reader seem ignorant and the reporter mediocre.

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A Biased Bruise or a Truthful Trauma?

Bias and truth are in the eye of the beholder. Just ask Michele Bachmann.

According to an article by The Huffington Post, Bachmann's campaign team can prove CBS bias against the presidential hopeful. An email from a CBS employee was mistakenly sent to a member of her campaign team.

CBS pointed to Bachmann's low 4% in response to Bachmann's campaign team's accusations of bias. If a candidate is sitting at 4%, a debate moderator wouldn't need to ask the candidate many questions.

This follows the role of agenda setting. Americans haven't made Bachmann a priority, so the media has no reason to report on her.

What the campaign team calls 'bias' is 'truth'. They can't contest the 4% from CBS's cited poll, so the team calls any negative news 'biased'. What is their truth?

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Norris Steps Down from NPR

Journalists must remain objective at all times. Without it, we would lose our credibility and trust from the public.

Identifying conflicts of interest isn't difficult. A football player can't cover the homecoming football game, student body president can't report on the latest developments in student government and a fraternity president can't write a story about Greek week.

The Huffington Post reported that Michele Norris of NPR's 'All Things Considered' will step down from her hosting duties while her husband joins the Obama campaign.

Norris made the only decision she could in her situation. As journalists, we must remain objective and unbiased in order to maintain our credibility.

While it is unlikely that Norris would have interviewed her own husband, he is still a part of the Obama team. For instance, a sports reporters should not cover a game if their spouse is a player on the team.

Reporters who are in these situations need to separate their personal and professional lives. The balance may come down to, as in Norris's case, choosing a spouse over work. Ultimately, this decision may seem unfair, but it was necessary for Norris to maintain her credibility for her journalistic. future.

Photo by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Reality is Made for TV After All

Reality TV isn't the only thing presenting reality with an agenda like a soap opera; a recent rescue of 33 miners could be the script for a movie.

Every trapped miner has a story line. Each is a well developed character with a family waiting on the surface for their rescue. Each had a will to live, and each appeared to be "resurrected" from the earth.


When a person sees this kind of story in the news, it can stir questions about reality versus scripted reality. How much of what is shown on TV a true replication of reality--even when it is reported?
It is a strange thing to think about. How much of reality is actually shown as reality?

Over the years there has been more and more distrust of the government. It would seem like if they can't trust the government they would then turn to the media (an establishment supposedly free from the government) in order to find truth. However, the public should perhaps be cautious about putting this kind of trust in the media.

We've all heard about or been warned about biases. We all have one and we all use one--but maybe more importantly, we all are exposed to information that has been filtered through a bias.

So what does that mean for reality TV? Most would agree that it isn't exactly representative of true reality. Instead, reality TV does a lot to influence our perspective on reality.

It's our job to filter out what we want to believe and what we don't. It's our job to question what is presented as 'reality' no matter what source it comes from.

Finally, it is our job to remember that everything is presented through and experienced through certain biases and the only way to truly understand the information is to understand what parts of our own perspective are influenced by these biases.

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Homosexuality Subjected to Bias on TV too

President Obama said in a recent interview with Rolling Stone that Fox News has a "very clear, undeniable point of view," a point of view not shared by the President.

Obama went on to say that the clearly conservative view held by Fox and enforced by Fox owner Rupert Murdoch "is ultimately destructive for the long term growth" of the country--a country Obama said has "a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world." Obama is the Democratic party candidate from the 2008 election and has very liberal views unlike Fox which is said to have a very conservative bias.

On the other side of the political spectrum, James O'Keefe, a conservative prankster, was recently caught trying to pull off a prank that would show an obvious bias of CNN. He tried to make CNN anchorwoman Abbie Boudreau stubble upon a fake scandal. O'Keefe is known to have a strong opinion that CNN has a clear bias and he must have assumed that Boudreau would jump at the chance to uncover his conservative sex scandal.

Scandal is intriguing when it comes in connection with politics. Everyone has a bias, whether it be in politics, religion or another aspect of society. These biases cause networks like Fox to present things like homosexuality in a particular way--a way that may not always be true to reality.

A recent study showed that one in five television viewers--gay or straight--are unhappy with the portrayal of homosexuals on television. Some heterosexuals commented that seeing homosexuals portrayed as they are on television makes them uncomfortable as a viewer. Some homosexual viewers commented that the way homosexuality is shown on TV is nothing like the life of most homosexual persons.

Many homosexual viewers discussed how they want to see a homosexual character who is NOT defined by his/her sexual preference.

Just like political affiliates are branded with the names of conservative or liberal and every form of media has a, while usually unintentional, bias, characters on TV who are homosexual are branded with the cast iron rod burning HOMOSEXUAL into their television skin.

Characters branded with HOMOSEXUALITY are the subjects of scandal in many TV shows and movies--this is intriguing to viewers, but would it be as intriguing if the character wasn't defined by his or her sexuality?

We can see this branding in TV shows like "Degrassi" in which gay males are known on the show as 'the gay male.' Being gay is the entire importance of their character to the plot. In the movie Bound, actress Gina Gurshon plays the role of a "butch lesbian." This leads an inexperienced audience to believe that all homosexual men are known only for being gay and that all lesbians are "butch." The homosexual viewers said this was not true to reality and seemingly biased.

What is the true cost of intrigue, especially when it leads us to see a fake reality through a biased lens?

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