Biased media? It’s nothing new

Why do I make that statement? Well, it’s one of the significant points I took away from Edward J. Larson’s book ‘A Magnificent Catastrophe’. This is the same author who wrote about the 1925 Scopes ‘Monkey’ trial, but that’s another topic for another time. Bottom line on the author: if he has a bias, it’s well hidden as he provides background information and walks you through the time period. No matter what your political stripe is, you will definitely gain something from the book as a whole.

Now, for the topic at hand. In Larson’s book, part of the background he provides of the John Adams administration (1797-1801) is in talking about the Alien and Sedition acts. Through his descriptions, you can see how different Americans were worried about what was happening to their fledgling country, and the road it seemed to be going down. He also provides a significant amount of details on the newspapers of the time. What is interesting about these newspapers is that the owners and writers, even the readers, identified themselves with certain political parties. You had Federalist newspapers, and Democratic-Republican newspapers. Since John Adams was a Federalist, the Alien and Sedition Act powers were used on (if I remember correctly) two ‘Republican’ newspapers, which turned into one of the big issues in the 1800 election (of course the ‘election’ wasn’t an election as we know it today but it was the electoral college in its’ original form) helping Thomas Jefferson eventually win (after a long dispute in the Federalist run House of Representatives deciding between two Democrat-Republican candidates – irony at its’ finest). The point I took away was, newspapers in that time were used to promote certain political agendas. If we are seeing anything in media behavior today, I would say it is a return to those long ago days when you chose where you got your information based on which party you supported. Is it any different today, particularly on the internet with the proliferation of blog sites providing information (of course with a certain political bent), and today’s media is going along with it.

Now, do I really care about the bias in the media? Not really. As long as individuals are aware of the bias when they are looking at the different sites, then they can make an informed choice about the information they get. However, too often people presume there is no bias and the information is presented in a neutral manner. I’ve seen too many instances when bias is shown to believe that, so I know better than to think the media has no agenda. I just wish more people (many more) would realize this as well, but maybe I ask too much from the YouTube generation with its’ extremely short attention span and looking at the surface of things rather than digging into the deeper facts. The other thing that irks me about the media situation is when the biased media itself tries to pass itself as unbiased. I don’t really care if they are biased, just be upfront about it and let me make the decision about whether I will continue to come to you for information, is that really too much to ask?