I Report, You Decide

I listen to Minnesota Public Radio nearly every day, I also usually get a chance to hear some some reporting from Fox news. I can’t imagine how any American can consider themselves informed unless they hear the news from at least two sides, and today was a great example.

MPR (NPR) reported that “A Washington Post poll shows that 66% of Americans are opposed to the removal of the filibuster for confirmations”. Fox news reported the actual question asked: “Would you support or oppose changing Senate rules to make it easier for the Republicans to confirm Bush's judicial nominees?"

Interestingly, the question never even mentioned the filibuster, and made it sound like a political stunt directed only at “Bush nominees”, so it is very difficult to get much of any idea about what the poll said about “the public opinion of nominee filibuster”. Fox is viewed as a “biased outlet” but the mainline media, NPR/MPR and the Post are “unbiased”. Is allowing people to hear what question was asked and making up their own mind “biased”? Is it possible that NPR and the Post are trying to shape public opinion rather than just report the news? It seems quite likely.

A second story which has been on NPR quite frequently is the story of Tom Delay and “ethics violations”. Amazingly, Tom seems to have officially changed his name on NPR to the EMBATTLED Tom Delay, it is reminiscent of “The Vulnerable Rod Grams” on MPR a few years back. It seems odd that public figures would change their names in such a fashion, but since I know that public radio is without bias, it must be true.

Fox news reported that Delay took $90K worth of trips funded by private or lobby groups, house members in total took $6 Million worth of trips. Harold Ford, a Democrat, took the most trips, 61, and James Sensenbrenner, a WI Republican, spent the most money on trips, $161K. They also reported on Delay’s problems, they just provided context from a paper called “The Hill” http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/042705/groups.html, so you could look it up.

From these examples, it is fairly easy to understand how the sides exchange the charges of bias. The “traditional media” decide what the story is and TELL you what to think about the story. “In their view”, which they will be happy to share with you, they are COMPLETELY unbiased, and so the conclusions that they give you are “correct and unbiased”.

Fox news reports exactly what the mainline media reports, but they ALSO give you the “other side”, or really in these cases, and in many of the cases I see, they just give you the CONTEXT of the mainline media story. Their motto is “we report, you decide”, and in these two stories that is precisely what they did. They reported more of the story than the other media outlets, so it was up to the consumer to decide what they wanted to think of the issues. The fact that they reported that “extra information”, which the left considers to be “misleading” (since it often lets the listener make different conclusions than what the left would like them to make) is what make them label Fox as “biased”.

Two simple stories, two radically different ways of reporting the stories. Is there any bias in the media? I’ll report, you decide.