The effect of media bias

This week, there's been even more news about a possible scandal with Trump being somehow involved with the Russians somehow, doing something.

Looking at it objectively, though, it's kind of hard to believe what's happening.

Ever since the election over 7 months ago, there's continually been accusations that Trump did this, or Trump did that, and the media continues to come up with new angles and stories about it.   But the strange thing is: nothing ever happens.  A new story gets reported, people react to it, and then - nothing.

And it's the usual plot line from the Trump side: they just repeat the same line: "Where's the evidence or proof?"  Then the media backs down, saying they have an "unnamed source" or "inside information" - yet when it comes time for them to actually show the evidence that there's a problem, they never deliver.

Watching all this, it seems like quite a game.  The media comes up with a story, people are upset about it, the media gets challenged, and they can't prove anything, so instead, they just move on to the next story and no one holds them in account for reporting the first story which had no basis of truth.

So it's a cycle of: report, react, get called on it, and find something new.

Naturally, a question arises: why wouldn't anyone hold the media accountable?  After all, they are reporting story after story that ends up just not being true or unprovable or just a theory or rumor.

Why would anyone listen to it or take it seriously?

What would make a person continue to believe the stories when absolutely NONE of them have been proven to be true?

This is a very deep question, and if you're one of those people who are posting on social media and "liking" the latest gossip about Trump, you might be feeling offended by this, but here's something you need to consider:

You WANT to believe.

You really wish that something was true, because it would validate what you feel.

But why?

There is a concept called "confirmation bias".  What it means is that when a person has a set of beliefs, they are much more quick to accept news that corresponds to those beliefs, than to news that goes directly against those beliefs.

Let's look at that for a moment.

Right now, the majority (>90%) of reporting about the current government, and in particular, Trump, is negative.  Criticism, complaints, potential scandals, etc. are majority of the stories; positive stories and praise for the current government are rare.

This shows that people are content with news that is negative towards Trump and the government right now.

That's understandable.  The whole election campaign was very nasty with a lot of insults and anger from both sides.  Trump certainly jumped into the middle of that and offended a lot of people with his remarks and comments, giving people a lot of reason not to like him.  So it's understandable that people have a bad impression of Trump.

However, there's a danger there, and it's one that the American people seem to be unaware of at this point.

Yes, people will want to hear news that is biased towards their viewpoints, because they want to hear things that agree with what they believe.

However an important question comes up: At what point does bias go too far?

For example, consider a communist country like China.  The news in China will always be praising the communist party and be biased against anything that goes against the party's beliefs.  This is what is typically referred to as propaganda.

So on that same thought: At what point does news in a free society become so biased that it is also effectively just propaganda?

This is an very important question.  The news media in America have stopped hiding the fact that they are biased.  So for you as an individual, it becomes a question of: are you listening to news which is truthful and objective or just politically motivated propaganda?

These days, it's something that must be considered because the media, by their own admission, is no longer objective and unbiased.  And that bias is creating some seriously bad consequences as a result.  What we're seeing is that the continual bombardment of negative news is resulting in people becoming more violent.  They feel frustrated and angry with the constant "bad news" and it's getting to them.

This is why we are seeing more protests, more violence, more anger.  People are "unfriending" each other and being more hostile in person-to-person interaction.

That is the effect that the media bias is having.

And this is why we need to really start questioning whether the media has gone too far.

Some bias will always be there, because it's nearly impossible for anyone to be completely fair and objective; that's just human nature.  But when it gets to a point that society is seeing terrible effects such as these, it's time to start questioning whether it should be allowed to continue.

Fortunately, it's a relatively easy problem to defeat: you simply have to see that it's happening, and then decide to not just trust what you're told by the media and do a bit of fact-finding yourself.  After doing this, most people find that:

1) The situation isn't nearly as bad as the news is making it out to be.
2) Most human beings are actually good and decent people.

And: 3) just blindly trusting what the media is saying when they provide no evidence or proof it is a bad idea.

LKvi