Sneaky Bias

I normally don’t bother trying to document examples of biased reporting because, frankly, I don’t have the time or interest. Years ago a friend and I put together a course on critical thinking that we gave at a local center for adult education. My partner and I used examples from various publications like the Boston Globe or Newsweek. We had absolutely no trouble finding examples. They were literally on every page. It was a target-rich environment. 

However sometimes I see particular example of how sneaky the bias is in the reporting. Here are two, both related to the controversy over mail-in voting.  I have my own concerns about mail-in voting, just to be transparent. I’m not going to talk about them here because the point I’m making has to do with how some news reporting tries to influence your opinion by their choice of the words they use … or don’t use.

The first example comes from the local Boston evening news. They showed Trump saying that absentee ballots were OK but that mail-in voting was subject to fraud. When they cut back to the news anchor he says, "There is no evidence of mail-in voter fraud." Period. The anchor doesn't cite any sources while saying it like it's an established, unquestionable fact. They then immediately shifted to a different story. So this leaves the uninformed viewer with the impression that Trump is wrong as usual and that mail-in voting has no risk.

The second example comes from the CBS This Morning Show in their coverage of the 2020 DNC convention. After showing some clips from the convention the anchor briefly reported on what Trump was doing at the same time and his “unsubstantiated” claims about mail-in voting fraud. Period. The anchor provided no substantiation for this statement.  If you’re not listening critically words like “unsubstantiated” slip by your filter and could influence your opinion. I think this is intentional, not accidental.

You could argue that the available time in news shows is too tight to get into detailed counterarguments. Fair enough. However, I’d say they could add something like, “Some experts say there is no evidence of mail-in fraud.” In fact, I used to see statements like that added at the end of a story where the news aired a claim by someone who challenged something like the validity of claims about global warming. I haven’t seen that recently.

My main point is to show how they sneak in their own unsubstantiated claims as if it were an indisputable fact. These days there is no such a thing!