News should be reliable. But that is contrary to popular opinion. When Americans hear the phrase “News media” they think “Bias.” One can assert that journalism is slanted but how do you prove it? We examine this issue so you can decide what is balance, what is fairness, and what is bias, both in the news media and in your mind.
Democracy relies on the involvement of an informed electorate. But political partisans claim that “The Media” misinform the electorate, through imbalanced, unfair, biased reporting. Whose fault is it if the electorate is misinformed? What if the “facts” they are using to make up their mind aren’t actually true?
Let’s replicate a recent study of what voters knew when they picked a new Congress mid-way through President Obama’s first term
Question 1:
From the beginning of Obama’s first term through Election Day 2009, what happened to your federal income tax rate?
A) Gone Down
B) Stayed the Same
C) Gone up
Question 2:
What do most scientists believe about climate change?
A) Climate change is occurring
B) Views are evenly divided
C) Climate change is not occurring
When researchers at the University of Maryland asked voters those basic fact questions on their way to the polls during the mid-term elections of 2010, many voters were flat wrong on important facts related to the ballot choices they were making.
- 55% thought we were in a recession still, when the economy had in fact turned a corner.
- 86% did not know their federal taxes had gone down since Obama’s election.
- Almost half, 45%, thought climate change is not occurring or that scientists are evenly divided on the question, when in fact the National Academy of Sciences, which is made up of thousands of scientists, has overwhelmingly concluded the climate is changing.
A majority believed other falsehoods: that Obama initiated the bank bailout and that foreign donors financed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 2010 election crusade to elect Republicans.
We elected a Congress based on Misinformation?
.