We are right in the middle of election season and as being a first time voter I need to gather as much information as I can. I want to make an informed decision on who I am going to vote for in November. Now I have watched the last two debates and I can’t tell which candidate is telling the truth and which is lying. So now I am even more unsure of where I stand. Every time I try to get information, it all seams extremely biased. I try talking to my family and I get very conservative views; when I talk to my friends I get very liberal views. The same thing happens when I turn on the TV or go online.
Fox News claims to be “Fair and Balanced” and tend to lean towards the right side of the political spectrum. Fox News was founded in 1996 by Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch even said “I challenge anybody to show me an example of bias in Fox News Channel.” Now it is one thing to say that your channel is unbiased, its another thing to prove it. If Fox News was so unbiased then why are there so many people saying that it isn’t? I have personally watched Fox News and believe that it has many right wing opinions and an occasional left wing perspective. All you hear while watching is phrases like “Fair and Balanced” and they claim to have people to represent all sides.
I read an article called The Most Biased Names in News and there was one section that I found really interesting. In 1996, a cable news reporter from New York City named Andrew Kirtzman was interviewed for a job with Fox. Kirtzman said that management wanted to know what his political affiliation was. He told the Village Voice in October of 1996 that “They were afraid I was a Democrat.” he refused to tell Fox his political affiliation and “all employment discussion ended,” according to the Village Voice. I think that the network had the right to ask what his political affiliation was since it is a political network. However, if Kirtzman said that Fox was afraid he was a Democrat, that is wrong. They claim to share both sides so that would mean that they would have to hire people on both sides. Not just conservatives.
Fox isn’t the only network that does this. MSNBC tends to have stories that are more liberal. According to The Spectator MSNBC denies that their news is biased. The commentators that include people like Chris Matthews, Rachael Maddow, and Rev. Al Sharpton and are all known to lean towards the left.
One of the most recent examples of news bias happened in the second presidential debate. According to Global News Desk, moderator Candy Crowley from CNN is being accused of helping President Barack Obama during the debate. Crowley is being accused of this by right-wing conservatives. The article stated that activists have accused her of interrupting Obama a lot less and giving him three additional minutes. She also corrected Governor Mitt Romney when they were talking about the Libya attack. I watched that debate and didn’t really pick up on any of this. Now that I have done some research, I can see where these people are coming from. A moderator should not favor any candidate during the debate.
I think all the examples above show that the media today is becoming more and more biased. When I want to listen to the news I don’t want to hear just one side of the story. I want to know all sides so I can form my opinion. I believe that news stations today need to become more “Fair and Balanced.”
Sources:
Ackerman, Seth. "The Most Biased Name in News." The Most Biased Name in News. N.p., July-Aug. 2001. Web. 24 Oct. 2012. <http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1067>.
Diao, Kalif. "CNN's Candy Crowley Slammed for Pro-Barack Obama 'journalistic Bias'" Global News Desk. N.p., Oct 2012. Web. 27 Oct. 2012. <http://www.globalnewsdesk.co.uk/north-america/candy-crowley-conduct-wrong/02180/>.
Garrett, William. "News Channels Are Biased, Unbiased." The Spectator. N.p., 4 Oct. 2012. Web. 24 Oct. 2012. <http://www.vsuspectator.com/2012/10/04/news-channels-are-biased-unbiased/>.
