Last updated on August 21, 2020
Remember, let’s be polite; let’s be respectful, but most of all, let’s be outspoken.
Fake news! Fake news! Fake news! Possibly President Trump’s favorite two worded phrase. He says it in press conferences, speeches, rallies, (in)famous tweets, and in day to day conversations. While the phrase can be seen as crass or rather redundant, there is some truth behind it.
Living in a predominately blue state, conservative news outlets are consistently ridiculed and judged harshly. When the debate team and I are gathering sufficient evidence for an upcoming tournament, they pull up an article from Fox News to make the fun of its bias. I do not join in on their criticism, but it is bluntly obvious of the bias within Fox News.
Statistically speaking, according to the Pew Research Center, nearly almost every member of Fox News voted for Donald Trump. On multiple occasions, they have been accused of confirmation bias and skewing the story to favor Trump.
According to Politifact, they are the least accurate cable news outlet. According to Business Insider, Fox News earned a -87 bias score among democrats and a +3 from Republicans. These are the facts and not my subjective opinion of the matter.
In 2006, authors from UC Berkley wrote a piece called the “The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting.” The paper consisted of specific pieces of analysis that addressed if media bias affected the voting of people. They ran a poll and estimated that Fox News influenced 200,000 voters to vote for George W. Bush in the 2000 election. Therefore, it is clear the impact conservative outlets have on the general populous.
One of the lesser-known right-winged outlets is Breitbart. Breitbart is a radically biased Republican outlet.
Breitbart has failed numerous fact checks by IFCN Fact-Checkers. For example: “Did Planned Parenthood ‘Team Up’ With Satanists to Promote Abortion Rights in Missouri?’ or “Trump’s ISIS Conspiracy Theory.” Most authors are pro-Trump and are right-wing. According to Business Insider, Democrats received a score of -73 bias score. However, Republicans gave it a -19 bias score to the outlet. I recommend avoiding articles from Breitbart.
Now, let’s look at one of the most prominent democratic news outlet in America: CNN. CNN progresses the liberal agenda. Donald Trump and republican advocates have attacked CNN and called it the “Enemy of the people.” According to Business Insider, Republicans gave it a -87 bias rating and Democrats gave it a +29 rating. Republicans claim it to be the most biased outlet.
According to Media bias/fact check, CNN uses emotionally loaded words such as Trump pounces on Justice Department report findings. CNN has numerously failed fact checks according to Politifact. In the past, there was a scandal that CNN released multiple false articles regarding GMOs to incite fear in their readers. For example, FDA allows genetically engineered ‘Frankenfish’ salmon to be imported to US. Most authors are anti-Trump and favor the Democratic side.
Obviously, there is a bias. Every author in an outlet favors one side. Thus, people don’t trust their media. And it’s all because of one word:
Agenda.
If one looks throughout the various news outlets mentioned above, they can realize that certain current events are not written about because it does not fit their progressive agenda.
For example, in recent news, Jussie Smollett was recently just released despite his 16 felony charges. He was charged on filing a false report, conducting a false hate crime, and more than a dozen more felonies. There was a variety of evidence pinned against the black, gay democratic actor. He had phone records of the men who he accused of assaulting him and there are hours of CCTV recordings of him buying supplies and talking to said victimizers.
The Chicago PD captain and DA of the county said that he was guilty. Yet, his prosecutors have dropped the charges. Some theorize his charges were dropped because his lawyers and himself were long-time friends with the Obama family. They theorize this because there is a text exchange between Kim Fox( the presiding state attorney) and one of Michelle Obama’s aids asking her to drop the charges.
Now obviously, Fox News jumped on the story. They published dozens of articles claiming this was an obstruction of justice. They said that Jussie needs to face real jail time for faking a hate crime and lying to the police.
However, CNN has released one article on the subject. This is because the story does not fit their agenda. Mr. Smollett is a democrat and the liberal agenda calls for the Democratic party to be the party of justice. Which it can not be when a Democrat commits a fake hate crime.
However, this issue of leaving stories out is not one-sided. Fox News and other conservative outlets have been known to leave out articles regarding the acts of Donald Trump. For example, Donald Trump recently released a new plan on healthcare.
However, Fox News did not cover the news story at all because of the controversy behind the story. And it’s not just stories like this, there are plenty of stories Fox News omits because it makes Trump looks disingenuous. Therefore, it does not fit their agenda.
The Recurring Trend
One thing that the public should notice is the liberal and conservative outlets attacks on each other. Obviously, no side is innocent of these brutal attacks. However, I first became interested in politics three years ago, when Donald Trump was sworn into office. When I began following politics, I noticed that CNN and MSNBC constantly attacked Donald Trump for colluding with the Russian government.
However, three years, later the Mueller report was released. In my opinion, the report exonerates Trump on some level.
If there as any new evidence I will redact this segment of the article. However, the problem with the liberal news’s criticism was that it was without any evidence and accused him based on speculation. While Fox News attacks certain democratic senators, they don’t attack as much as CNN of right now.
The trend of the media is that whoever is in power, whoever is in the Oval Office, whoever controls the Senate or the House, will not berate the other side as much as the opposing side. This is why, when I became interested in politics, I was confused as to why Fox News did not attack the left as much as CNN attacks the However, looking back at the conservative news outlet’s older articles, they attacked the reputation of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama when they were in office.
We live in the age of information. We have the capacity to look up whatever and whenever we want. We can learn anything about anyone with a click of a button. We are the generation of the future. We must disbar confirmation bias. We must expel disingenuous news. We must seek the truth regardless of a political agenda. We must obstruct lies and seek what is righteous. But most of all, we need to be outspoken.
Remember, let’s be polite; let’s be respectful, but most of all, let’s be outspoken.
Yes, I totally agree! We must be incredibly aware about the information we digest by the media
this is very interesting