OG guide

BIAS

IN

MEDIA

OG GUIDE

I n t r o d u c t i o n (david Jaros)

Now you are probably asking

why do we want to tell you about

these issues of the media bias. We

want you to realize these

partialities in the broadcasting

because it will make you better

reader as well as better consumer

of information. Furthermore you

can find it useful in your future

studies, especially in English and

TOK lessons. We made this guide

for you to make your life easier.

You will not have to look for this

information on the internet and

spend hours looking for the

examples; you will just read our

brochure. Lastly it will be an

advantage for you to be aware of

the media biases. From this time

you will not be another blind

reader, you will rather be a critical

reader.

The media, the main source of

information and news, is represented

by newspapers, magazines and

broadcasting. They are choosing

which content they will tell us and

how they will tell them. When we see

the daily headlines television we can

meet topics covering mainly sad

subjects; murders, rapes or less

important issues as new-born tiger

in a zoo. Moreover there is a

difference between articles posted in

“Mladá Fronta” or in “Blesk”. Every

company has different sources of

their information and is writing to

different type of people. Therefore the

content of the news can be different

and it is only up to us if we want to

read funny and catchy articles,

which can be wrong or if we do not

mind reading sometimes longer but

more informative and reliable

articles. Another important part of

every piece is photos. It’s for the

reason that the majority of us before

reading the article look at the

pictures to have basic idea what the

article will be about.

Content

Sources

Language

Photo bias

Stereotyping

Sensationalism

A lack of context

Leadership in the Media

This brochure is going to focus on the topics:

S O U R C E S (Kristina benedetti)

We are here to give you a guide!

Be aware, that especially nowadays,

when lots of types of magazines and

newspapers are released into the

world, some information might be far

from the truth. The reason for this is

that the certain news simply wants to

be ´better´ than the other news and

because people tend to exaggerate

things. Surely everybody knows the

media which you have to look at from

the distance in order to get original

message.

Sources – reliable and credible!

While you are reading an article

announcing an ´exclusive information´

you might ask yourself: “Where does this

information come from?” As the day

flows, you have the possibility to read

another articles about the same ´breaking

news´ and you might start to think of

which one is credible and which one is

not. “Do they include a wide range of

sources? Is there at least one reporter

representing the information? Isn’t it

biased with the undertone of the

magazine?”

Simple guide to help you to find out if the

article is truthful and reliable!

Start with reading your article – that’s because

you want to know what it is about.

Conduct a simple search – find every person

quoted in the article having their opinion

mentioned there

Find reporters – the most reliable sources of

information, first-hand research experiences

Primary sources – originate from people that

were direct witnesses or who was the direct

object of investigation

Secondary sources – originates from the

official police report, other people who pass

the information on, or the commentators

Be aware of not having there a variety of

people – if there are three policemen, it

does not mean that they have three

different opinions

When possible look at the references –

often included in the magazines; give you

the overview of the sources

Gather many types of news! – In order to

get the most objective information

Read it again! - For the further

understanding of the article

May launched a consultation last July over

her proposals to scale back the use of police

stop-and-search powers and ensure their

"fair and effective use".

At the time, the home secretary said it was no

longer sustainable that black people were still

seven times more likely to be searched on the

street than white people. She also said it had

been seen as sharply divisive in Britain's

black and minority ethnic communities.

May had planned to announce cabinet approval of her proposals before last Christmas, but she ran into strong Downing Street concerns that the move could leave the Tories looking "soft on crime". Nick Clegg, who chairs the cabinet's home affairs committee, is said to have backed May's package but it was not sufficient to end the standoff.

The home secretary, Theresa

May, is due to make a

Commons statement on the

future of police stop-and-search

powers, suggesting that her

nine-month dispute with

Downing Street over the issue

has finally been resolved.

The Metropolitan and West Midlands

police forces have already massively

scaled back their use of stop and search as

part of a successful pilot scheme using a

more "intelligence-led approach".

The more targeted approach saw the use of

stop and search reduced by up to half and

an increase in the "hit rate", the rate of

detections and arrests, despite fewer

searches on the street.

Alan Travis, home affairs editor

Consider for example this article about the

dispute with Downing Street over police

powers has been resolved.

First of all, if you are following our little

guide and searching for the people involved

in this article, you will find about 4

representatives (we have highlighted them

for you). This then might seems like a

balanced overview with several opinions,

which should provide an objective message.

However, looking at it closely, you can spot

two people from home affairs and two police

forces integrated in the text. Moreover, both

of these departments are from PR (public

relations), giving it more subjective report,

trying to persuade readers to take over their

point of view. This is then even accentuated

by the fact that it was written by the home

affairs editor Alan Travis.

L a n g u a g e (Dominika kourilova)

We will consider two articles from two different

websites talking about the same thing. The first

article was published on Times for Israel, the

second one on Boston news. The articles are

talking about the bombarding in Israel in March

2014. Try to focus on the very first sentence in

each article and recognize how they play with your

mind just using a different sentence structure,

different words. The underlined words change the

information absolutely.

Language

In Theory of Knowledge class you were taught (or

you will be) how powerful language is. Despite

the fact it is one of the areas of knowing,

language affects us every day – we use it, we hear

it, we read it…it is a way how to express

ourselves - the most precise one. However, people

can really misuse it and influence yours

thinking, perception and whole point of the

message. Let’s have a look at examples so you

better understand the problematic.

Rockets strike Israel,

jeopardizing truce talk

March 13, 2014/ Boston news

JERUSALEM (AP) – The

Palestinian militant group

Islamic Jihad said Thursday it

had agreed to halt a wave of

rocket fire on Israel, signalling

an end to the heaviest fighting

between the sides since 2012,

though soon after the

announcement two rockets fired

from Gaza exploded inside Israel.

The Islamic Jihad denied it

launched the attack and it wasn’t

immediately unclear who fired

the rockets. Cease-fire

declarations have not always

been honoured by militants and

the barrage raised doubts about

the cease-fire offer made by

Islamic Jihad.

The Israeli military said a total of

four rockets were fired

Thursday from Gaza. Israeli

officials previously refused to

confirm any cease-fire deal was

in place.

In two days of violence, militants

fired more than 60 rockets into

Israeli, while Israel has carried

out a series of airstrikes in

Gaza. No serious casualties

have been reported.

Gaza rockets batter south,

testing ceasefire

By Adiv Sterman March 13,

2014/ Times for Israel

At least eight rockets were

fried at southern Israel

Thursday evening as a several

hour ceasefire declared between

Jerusalem and Islamic Jihad

threatened to unravel.

One missile, heading for a

populated are of Netivot, was

shot down by and Iron Dome

anti-rocket battery, the IDF

said.

Five more missiles hit open

areas in Sderot, Shaar Hanegev

and Sdot Hanegev areas after 8

p.m. No injuries or damage

were reported.

Earlier in the evening, two

rockets were launched at the

Ashkelon region, sending

residents scurrying for shelter.

Both landed in open areas.

Gazan terror groups Islamic

Jihad denied it launched the

attacks and it wasn’t

immediately unclear who fired

the rockets. Cease-fire

declarations have not always

been honoured by terror

groups and the barrage raised

doubts about the ceasefire offer.

Yes, these are really 2 articles

talking about one occasion.

Focus especially on underlined

words or sentences that are

mainly changing the

information.

This is one of the aspect that

you are supposed to be careful

about, when reading some

article:

Emotionally charged words –

the level or type of emotionally

coloured word changes your

perception and understanding.

Little difference in meaning

changes the message.

Examples of using different

loaded words for the same

action/subject:

Bureaucrat vs. public servant

Pro-death vs. pro-choice

Regime vs. government

Elitist vs. expert

Infanticide or child murder vs.

abortion

Put up with vs. tolerate

Put at a loss vs. bewilder

P h o t o b i a s (Sara Ehrlichova)

Photos are usually used in media (mostly

newspaper and magazines) to illustrate specific

situation, to provide the detail of the surrounding,

to give us the context. However media take an

advantage over using the photos to manipulate the

reader to their intention.

There are several most common ways how to

manipulate the reader and create the bias in

media. This includes:

Artificially created situation in order to give

false impressions or even to create a story that

is not true

Manipulating with photographs

One of the most common examples of editing

photos is the photo of Adnan Hajj. The photo on

left side is edited with cloning tool from

Photoshop; therefore it shows more intensive

smoke and destruction in Beirut than the

original picture on the right.

Plus the correct description with the picture in the

printed edition of The Times was stated “After an

Israeli airstrike destroyed a building in Tyre, Lebanon,

yesterday, one man helped another who had fallen and

was hurt.”

Misleading captions and information

background about the photo

In this case, good example is the photo published in

New York Times. The caption of the photo said “The

mayor of Tyre said that in the worst hit areas, bodies

were still buried under the rubble, and he appealed to

the Israelis to allow government authorities time to pull

them out.” This indicates even from the photo that

man lying on the ground is dead. However the same

man that seems dead is just one minute earlier seen

scrambling over debris in the same place. After many

complaints, New York Times was forced to make a

‘correction’ over the caption of the photo, stating “A

picture caption with an audio slide show on July 27

about an Israeli attack on a building in Tyre, Lebanon,

imprecisely described the situation in the picture. The

man pictured, who had been seen in previous images

appearing to assist with the rescue effort, was injured

during that rescue effort, not during the initial attack,

and was not killed.”

Changing the perspectives and

angles Changing the perspective of the photos is an

easy way how to create the photo bias. As an

example might be used the photo published in

The Independent of Palestinian children

pretending to be in an Israeli prison. The photo

was actually taken on one of the protests of

Gaza freelancer. However the photographer took

the photo from different angle which created the

result giving the impression that the children

are standing in the prison. Even though the

photographer used the right caption but as long

as newspaper does not have to use the captions

of the photos. The Independent did not use it

when they decided to write about Palestinian

minors, they took the photo and gave the

information of “children clapped in in irons”.

Not using photographs Another bias often used is actually not using photos at all. On January 3, 2006 three Palestinian men were killed by Israeli soldiers. This situation was reported by Reuters which wrote “Israeli soldiers have shot dead three Palestinians, including a 15-year-old boy, who were throwing stones in protests around the West Bank city of Nablus early on Saturday local time, Palestinian medics and witnesses said.” And Associated Press stating: “On Saturday, troops opened fire at a large number of Palestinians throwing stones, an army spokesman said.” By those statements readers would get the impression that Israeli soldiers overreacted to children throwing small rocks. However the photography which was taken, but not used, gives different point of view.

S t e r e o t y p i n g (Nina Fuchsova)

Are you aware of the characteristics

described as being “a typical” woman?

For instance women being provocative

and promiscuous, hence more likely to

be cheaters or a good liars. So, look on

this senator and guess what’s wrong.

This article is from online news

http://www.breitbart.com/ with a

title:

“Single teen mom? Texas’s Wendy

Davis lied

about life story.”

The problem of many articles is

that they are following prejudices

and stereotypes, which might be

sometimes supported by very

vague sources or taken out of the

context. Are you thinking over

what I mean? Let’s have a look on

following examples and explain it.

Her ex-husband

accused her for

cheating,

however who

knows the truth?

Exploita

tion of

men ->

gold

diggers

Using lie

instead of

conceal

Whole article available on: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-

Government/2014/01/19/Liar-in-Pink-Shoes-Wendy-Davis-s-Composite-

Life

“Wendy Davis, the Texas state senator

whose filibuster for abortion rights made her

a Democratic superstar and launched her

campaign for governor, has admitted to

the Dallas Morning News that she lied about

key events in her life, including her first

divorce. Davis may even have lied under

oath, testifying in a federal lawsuit over

redistricting that "I got divorced by the time I

was 19 years old," when in fact she was

divorced at age 21.

Other missing details have included: her second husband paid her way through law school and she divorced him the day after the last payment was made; her ex-husband accused her in initial court filings of adultery, and was awarded custody of their two daughters; and she first ran for city council in Fort Worth as a Republican. “

(It reminds me of another bias –

truthfulness of media. However

you can read more about the

nonsense quotation that Mr.

Sommer said in the footnote –

scientists comment)

And concerning the opposite gender. Have you ever noticed the signs of being strong, dominant, etc.? Moreover the thing that most of the articles, when talking about man make fun of, are “women things”? Let’s take in consideration for example this article from the online magazine iDIVA, it just strikes me. Not talking about the fact that the Bisphenol A is not having negative effect on potency but the thing that they interpreted it in this scientific way to be more persuasive that shopping is not a manlike thing.

Sense About Science, For The Record, 13 July 2010

http://www.senseaboutscience.org/for_the_record.php/21/can-shopping-

receipts-make-you-impotent-the-telegraph-30th-june-2010

Shopping is

typically women

desire and hobby

Who

are the

researc

hers?!

Can we

believe

them?

As you can read in the footnotes

source, there’s scientific article

saying that it’s nonsense what

Mr. Sommer said (fortunately he

is real J )

Shopping is really bad for men’s health and

fertility, scientists are now saying after new

research.

Researchers have discovered that a chemical

compound found on some cash receipts

contains a hazardous substance, Bisphenol A

(BPA), which suppresses male hormones in

the body and can make men impotent.

The compound, used to make ink visible on

thermally sensitive paper, is ingested when

men handle the paper and then touch their

mouths or handle food.

Frank Sommer, a Berlin-based urologist, said

the substance could just affect sex hormones

in men.

"A substance like that could shift the balance

of sex hormones in men towards oestrogen,"

Sommer was quoted as saying by The

Telegraph newspaper here.

S e n s a t i o n a l i s m (Joshua zrzavy)

Sensationalism is a type of bias in media, where ordinary news are overhyped in order to catch more attention of readers. Sensationalism usually focuses on themes that are emotionally based or on famous people and their affaires or our primal sense – fear. Trivial information and events are sometimes misrepresented and exaggerated as important or significant, and often includes stories about the actions of individuals and small groups of people. Furthermore, the content and subject matter typically doesn't affect the lives of the masses and doesn't affect society, and instead is broadcast and printed to attract viewers and readers, however some sensations can be partially true, but are still extremely exaggerated. Therefore, any story based on sources who may be reasonably assumed to be motivated to act in this way is best interpreted with critical thinking. Be aware of those sources, where people with not enough information post their opinions and share it. Then it starts the effect of “snowball” and it slowly starts the sensation – somebody spits interesting and touchy theme on internet [not necessarily] and other user grabs it and adds additional, possibly false, information, that’s how it continues until it hits media.

For example the case of

“Y2K” bug – programmers

and IT techs were used to

save their numerical data

in only two letters [Y2K =

year 2 000] because Y

refers to YEAR, and “K”

refers to kilo [1000]. So

these machines went from

“99” to “00” – this in some

machines resulted in

change of date to “19100”.

The problem here is, that

it was only small

technical problem – media

turned this problem into

worst disaster, even

referring to collapse of all

technology. There were

rumors of cars possibly

not working etc. This

resulted in army,

government and regular

people spending billions

of dollars on their PC’s in

order to protect them.

CDI calculated, that

worldwide we have spent

$422 billion in order to

protect their PC’s.

What really happend?

In Onagawa, Japan, an

alarm sounded at a nuclear

power plant at two minutes

after midnight.

In Sheffield, United Kingdom,

incorrect Down syndrome test

results were sent to 154

pregnant women and two

abortions were carried out as

a direct result of a Y2K bug.

Four Down's syndrome babies

were also born to mothers who

had been told they were in the

low-risk group.

And other MINOR problems, which

means that Y2K was a huge

sensationalism.

L a c k o f c o n t e x t (Jiri trebicky)

Let’s say you see an article about a man

who was brutally killed by shotgun when

he delivered a newspaper magazine.

Everyone would pity this man and would

feel really awful about the husband of the

family who shot him. What if there would

be added more background and you

would find out that the newspaper guy

was trying to rape a little girl that he

found alone in the house when he

delivered the newspaper. The news is not

lying, they are just not saying the full

story.

Another simple approach is to cut speeches of

interviewed people and therefore make them sound

in a different way. Problem with this approach is

that the host/politician/whoever did say the things,

they just cut the beginning or the end of the speech

so it is the way they want. Usually you don’t

question that because they obviously have no time

for the interview in news right?

There are many simple ways how to twist reader´s mind. One of it is not to tell him circumstances and background of the case. A brief example should speak for itself. This is an easy way how to change reader’s perception without lying.

We cannot blame the media all the times. Very often

there are political reasons to cut a message. This

applies a lot to the countries where the politicians

own the media. They would not let the writers to

publish some dark secrets of the government.

This is an extreme but simple

example of how they can do it.

The red words were deleted.

It completely changes the message. From the

green area it seems like the host is happy from a

death of his fellow. Of course this is an evil

example but in a way it is a good as well.

Interview about a death of a friend:

Interviewer: Are you happy today?

Host: Happy? No, not at all, it was an unnecessary

death.

Interviewer: Can you tell me what relationship did

you have with Archibald?

Host: Of Course…

They also insert random pictures in order to create the

atmosphere and change the perception of a reader. This

is more like changing the context than lacking it. Our

brain is unable to disconnect from the pictures that are

allocated next to the text and even though he does not

realize he is being fooled, he is.

To summarize, we must start to question the context

and try to look up interviews from valid sources. If

we don’t we might get a bad impression of celebrities

that aren’t that bad as described.

L e a d e r s h i p (Karolina Kolarova)

Freedom of the press belongs to the man

who owns one." A. J. Liebling

Each of these following quotes is hiding

some kind of truth. Especially this one is

worthy to be considered. Who influence what

we read in newspapers and see in TV news?

According to the statistics 47% of media is own by

public figures. You might not find it anyhow

interesting or important BUT what seems to be not

affecting us is in fact messing with our mind...

However, there is one question hanging in the air.

How should we know who and how is influencing

the information that is later on world widely

distributed? Well usually we won´t found any

official title “owned by George Bush “or “under the

control of American government”. Not all

newspapers are following the trend “support your

owner”, but if so it´s really hard to detect any of

biases or favouritism in newspaper or media in

general. The tactics is really sneaky.

So here are few tips how to

avoid this psychological

game:

Isn´t it weird that one media confirms

allegations that Berlusconi had raped a

girl, but some says the opposite. Well it is

probably due to the fact that Berlusconi

owned almost 80% of Italian media. -

NEVER FORGET TO COMPARE MORE

SOURCES!

Note the amount of articles that are talking

about the same subject especially in positive

manner. Such an example is elections. In year

2000 when presidential elections were held in

US, Fox news spent $2.9 million on “Bush

campaign”. Almost 57% of news was about

Bush. How is it possible? Well, George Bush

owns 2% of Fox News and moreover he is the

best friend of the company director.

To be honest some media are making really a fool

from us. ALWAYS look for small details. Such as

numbers of missiles fired at the beginning of year

2014 by Israeli air force. Palestinian news says at

the beginning 8, but at the end 12 missiles on the

other hand Israeli news mentioned 5 missiles fired.

So probably 12 minus 8 should be 5 or 5 should

equals to 12 as is mentioned in the articles. We can

see that Israeli government is not alike with the

Palestinian as both of the news is owned by

politicians with different ideologies.

S u m m a r y (Marcell hembrom)

We have to be aware about how media exaggerates ordinary

things just to make news interesting. We also need to look out

for the stereotyping in the media, such as: ´characteristics of

women´, ´attacking men sovereignty´ or ´rape victims having a

history of promiscuity´, etc. These statements are not always

true and are presented in a delusory point of view. Sometimes

people are also manipulated by difference in language used

within the same content or by the usage of emotionally

charged words. We also should take a closer look at the

photos provide

Be also aware how many people are concerned in the article you read. In order to have balanced report, the more people involved the better. Different opinions are important! We have to bear in mind that corporate media are here to make money. Therefore, since they can provide us the news, they can also manipulate it.

Hence, when reading any news we need to know what we want to read and how much we want to know about the real fact and do the research. Instead of relying completely on the media we should also use our critical thinking in order to be closer to the real happening.

There is a variety of media in our society, which are covered

by different companies, involved in the production of the

stories that the news produce. The news stories reflect the

corporate political interests of the people involved. This is

the reason why media does not always provide complete

essential background information to the article (for the

readers to understand it completely), but it is used just to

accompany the story as it lacks some information. This is

also the reason why they are failing to question social

structures, economic institutes, instructional racism etc.

Sources

Cover picture:

http://feyzikaraer.deviantart.

com/art/media-40743626

Pictures in this brochure were used from following websides:

http://twicsy.com/i/ixeBJb

http://blogs.yis.ac.jp/14omoric/2012/08/27/english-g11-stereotypes/

http://faculty.mercer.edu/spears_a/studentpages/gender_stereotypes/webpage.html

http://www.galanet.eu/dossier/index.php?IdDossier=65

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Political-language-28517918

http://commonsensebygrandpat.com/2013/09/05/the-media-prosecutors-judges-and-jurors/

http://www.minnpost.com/business/2012/05/end-near-weekly-newsmagazines-flirt-sensationalism

http://th02.deviantart.net/fs70/200H/f/2012/135/c/c/media_head_by_chucorose-d4ztxgp.jpg

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Dear-Media-82728708

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Media-Head-302047657

http://www.pcpmedia.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Screen-shot-2013-01-14-at-4.48.27-PM.png

http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lw2a495AkR1qbn5m1o1_500.jpg

http://egmr.net/wp-content/themes/egamer/scripts/timthumb.php?zc=1&w=650&h=300&src=http://egmr.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/spongebob.jpg

http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfitzake/Lectures/DMED/SpeechLanguage/LanguageImage.jpg

http://www.greenberg-art.com/.Toons/.Toons,%20Media/qqxsgMediaBias.gif

http://www.madperspectives.com/images/Context.jpg