Recognizing Bias

The news media has long functioned as the American Fourth Estate, at its best correcting abuses of power in government and business, and at its worst amplifying the biases of reporters and publishers and promoting them as "truth." The explosion of new forms of media in the twenty-first century, coupled with new professional standards, advertising models, and technologies, has made it harder than ever to identify bias, let alone do anything about it. This resource investigates the...
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The news media has long functioned as the American Fourth Estate, at its best correcting abuses of power in government and business, and at its worst amplifying the biases of reporters and publishers and promoting them as "truth." The explosion of new forms of media in the twenty-first century, coupled with new professional standards, advertising models, and technologies, has made it harder than ever to identify bias, let alone do anything about it. This resource investigates the causes of bias, its history, and its many manifestations in the new media of the twenty-first century. It proposes tools, tactics, and strategies for recognizing, confronting, and correcting bias, in the media as well as in ourselves.