Reporting Crises: U.S. Media Bias

Each day people are constantly fed new information about events across the globe through a variety of television networks, radio stations, daily newspapers, news magazines, and websites. This means of obtaining news forms the larger scope of what can be defined as the contemporary American press-a primary outfit for acquiring information today in the United States.

In the realm of politics more specifically, the media plays an important role in democracy as a direct link between the government and its constituents. In covering events in and out of the White House, political journalists have an insider track for being the first to learn about unreleased information.

Thus, because Americans rely on anchors, broadcasters and writers to provide them with the latest and most pertinent information, the media have an undeniably powerful effect in shaping the judgments that people make on political issues.

Even with reporters continuously at the center of the action, the public has no way of knowing if the information released from the press is completely accurate and unbiased. While the public expects journalists to habitually report truthful and unbiased information, ideological slant often permeates, even unintentionally.

In more recent years, liberals and conservatives have been at the forefront of a debate over ideological slant in the American media. With the development of more communication around the world, the issue of media bias has been raised on both sides of the ideological spectrum. While conservatives claim that most journalists generally favor liberal attitudes and perspectives, those on the left deny that such a definitive slant exists in the media.

However, the argument at hand remains much more complex and elaborate.

This controversy stirring between both sides begs us to consider with regard to the media's integrity several questions: how does the media's role in politics speak of our own democracy? Do news organizations have a political agenda to fulfill that ties them to a particular set of ideologies? Are American citizens actually receiving the objective, fair-minded news story? Or are some media sources more politically biased only in their coverage of a specific administration?

Each of these questions helps narrow the focus for assessing media bias by looking at news coverage in certain situations.

In order to address the issue of media bias, it is important to examine the way individual television networks and daily newspapers portray government officials and leaders during crises. In other words, how do journalists portray political administrations, particularly during times of crisis and conflict?

To gain a better understanding of this highly-debated issue, one can examine whether bias permeates in American media outlets while covering crises during the recent years of the Bush administration.

Why use the framework of crises to study media bias?

Editors and producers throughout the country have to make decisions about what information should be released publicly. In choosing stories that stimulate public interest and produce higher ratings, news organizations favor stories centered on events and intelligence that affect large masses of people.

Whether taking place at home or abroad, moments of crisis generate the largest amount of interest from an audience due to the severity of the event and the relativity of the information. The main headlines of any major crisis draw people that are interested in acquiring information about the current catastrophe unfolding.

Consequently, news networks often receive their highest ratings during these unfortunate times. While slant in the media can permeate in other news stories, media outlets holding an ideological stance on an administration in their crisis coverage can often influence the largest audiences.

For instance, certain news networks that praise or criticize how the United States government handles its responsibilities after a disaster can persuade its viewers to agree with their position; these outlets do not allow the public to independently assess the performance of a political administration in such situations.

In this way, reporters who favor one side over the other in covering the top stories might also apply the same system of ideological belief to other newsworthy topics. Therefore, media bias denies the freedom of each American to choose his or her own political preferences-a democratic right guaranteed by the Constitution.

In focusing on the Bush administration's public image over the last five years, certain elements of crises will be considered in order to make distinctions in the research being proposed. Whether the action takes place at home or overseas, the location of the crisis can greatly sway the media's treatment of an administration.

Both domestic and international disasters are important to investigate in order to confirm where media bias might pervade news coverage more frequently. Do news organizations favor administrations more in covering domestic or international conflicts? If so, what can be said about the media and its role in American democracy?

Furthermore, the cause of the crisis remains another item to consider in specifically dealing with times of conflict and disaster. Performed by nature or man, crises are unpredictable, arising spontaneously at different moments in time.

Consequently, one should make the distinction between natural and man-made disasters in determining the media's slant on President Bush and the work of his administration. While different forms of natural disasters can occur throughout the world, man-made disasters can be more precisely defined as acts of terrorism. In making this distinction, it is important to note that unlike man-made disasters, natural crisis do not have an element of prevention or even preparation.

Thus, a research design that compares the media's treatment of the current administration during acts of terrorism domestically and internationally can be established. Specifically, the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the London bombings in June 2005 would certainly prove to be useful for assessing bias in the media's coverage of terrorism.

The media's treatment of natural disasters at home and abroad may produce different results about how the media acts in other crises. These geographic distinctions are important politically because the media's perception of an administration may change due to the location of the crisis in relation to its affect on the lives of American citizens.

The tsunami in Sir Lanka during the winter of 2004 and the more recent Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans are prime examples for exploring media bias during natural disasters worldwide. Ultimately these four examples of recent crises would serve as a model to provide researchers with the evidence necessary to determine the political slant of primetime news coverage from particular news organizations at heightened times.

With the growth of media in the realm of broadcast and print communications, choosing which news organizations to study can greatly affect any conclusions that are drawn. While network news from ABC, CBS, and NBC holds the largest viewing audience due to its national focus, nightly news does not capture the same audience that it once did. With sit-coms and dramas lined up each night, news coverage from major television networks has taken a back seat.

In fact, certain television corporations have devoted their attention solely to news and politics while major news networks fill time slots throughout the day with other programs. Due to the minimal amount of coverage that network news provides in only thirty minutes, cable news has become America's most reliable source for up-to-the-minute information with its high ratings.

With television networks often the first to report the most recent news, broadcasting news in a timely fashion greatly dictates the extent to which media bias exists. The amount of time between the disaster's occurrence and the media's initial report can distort the facts and limit what information is immediately available.

Along these lines, times constraints in the media's coverage of the crisis represent another element to account for when testing for ideological slant. In more recent years, many have made claims that specific news organizations lean ideologically to one side more than another.

For example, CNN has been generally considered to favor liberals while Fox News has been consistently regarded as a conservative network. In maintaining a simple and well-defined research design, a researcher can focus his or her attention primarily on crisis coverage from twenty-four-hour news networks, specifically CNN and Fox News.

The same reputations of these television news channels holds true for print mediums, specifically daily metro newspapers. While studying these two cable networks, the world of print media must also be considered in determining the media's slant.

Unlike broadcast corporations, newspapers attract a different audience and turn out much more detailed and elaborate news stories because of their late night deadlines. These different deadline schedules can affect the accuracy and tone of a story, eventually producing deceptive and prejudiced news coverage.

Using The New York Times and The Washington Times as reliable and accurate daily publications, one can compare related articles from each, closely looking at the headlines, leads and tone of each newspaper story to decide whether ideological bias might be present in publicizing the actions and policies of the Bush administration during domestic and international crises.

As a national newspaper, The New York Times has gained a reputation for ideologically siding more often with left than right. On the other hand, The Washington Times has supported conservative policies in its news coverage and editorial section.

Taking these assumptions into consideration, definitive contrast between both newspapers in their ideological preferences is expected. By comparing the media's treatment of a crisis, one can show how different news organizations interpret and report on critical events around the world. From broadcast news to print media, these ideologically-split news organizations provide an excellent design for testing if such biases occur when American journalists cover domestic and international crises.

Even weeks after a crisis has occurred, the nature of the conflict and the issues surrounding it can produce more headlines and news updates for television networks and newspapers. With new information available each day, the media has to decide whether a particular crisis will hold an audience's attention for a longer span of time.

Therefore, a study on media bias must define the timeframe for studying the media's treatment of a crisis. Because the severity of a crisis garners more viewers and readers than the average news story, news organizations often present more information about a disaster days after it has taken place.

For this reason, it is safe to examine published articles and news telecasts up to two weeks after the crisis initially struck the world. By establishing such a guideline, the researcher can more easily assess at what stages the media slant their coverage of the crisis and the Bush administration. This two-week timeframe sets the boundaries for what research will be gathered and allows enough time to make some conclusions about the media's ideological tendencies during natural and man-made crises over the last five years.

The time, placement and length of a story are crucial elements that one must also consider when conducting research on media bias in various news organizations. In the realm of news broadcast, crisis stories specifically televised during primetime hours (5:30-7 p.m.) and those placed at the beginning of the telecast are usually good perimeters to follow.

Since the primetime hours receive the largest audience throughout the day, the impact of ideological bias on viewers becomes increasingly more significant in the realm of American democracy. The first story discussed in these thirty-minute programs offers another indication of what information the media deems most important and relevant for its viewers. Finally, the amount of time that the media devotes to a particular topic reveals the story's magnitude and impact on the American public.

Each of these elements affects the way viewers understand the news and form opinions about the current administration and its policies. Therefore, collecting this information will allow me to formulate conclusions about the media's ideological bias in crisis coverage.

Under the confines of print media, the front page (page 1) of daily newspapers acts in this same way as the television broadcast. News stories that earn a spot on the front page of a daily metro newspaper also reveal their importance to the rest of society. These articles often receive the most attention and response from readers due to its public location.

Since the front page determines which articles are more important than those inside the newspaper, coding the tone and space of these articles will reveal if biased reporting occurs in the most compelling news stories. These placement specifications help researchers understand what newsmakers believe are the top stories of the day throughout the world.

In addition to these procedures, one can distinguish between "above the fold" and "below the fold" in determining newspaper bias in crisis coverage. While the front page signifies the importance of the presented information, this minor distinction in location is not essential for assessing the media's overall treatment of its political subjects.

Instead, ideological bias can stem from the length of a news story in revealing its importance to readers. By looking at the length of an article, one can better understand the preferences and intentions of a news organization.

Follow-up editorials and sidebar articles on the same issue further indicates the prominence of a story.

Overall, the location, length, and number of stories on a particular issue are all decisions that must be made by newspapers-these choices reflect the attitudes of the reporters and editors and ultimately create an impression for readers.

In detecting media bias, a coding system must be established to determine whether news organizations hold a political position in crisis coverage that slants farther left or right than center.

In "The Impact of Media Bias: How Editorial Slant Affects Voters," political scientists James N. Druckman and Michael Parkin investigate editorial slant by constructing a model to measure tone and evaluate campaign coverage from two competing newspapers.

While it is important to examine the "soundbite space" of each news story, one should also categorize the tone of news stories as positive, neutral or negative. Word choice is one element to consider during this process since the overall focus of the presented information provides another factor to take into consideration when measuring media bias.

In coding for media slant, a quantitative system can be developed to categorize each story tone. From these numerical results, comparisons can be drawn between media outlets based on the number of positive, negative and neutral stories filed by each.

News organizations that release more positive or negative stories on the Bush administration's performance during the first two weeks after a crisis might lead to conclusions that suggest certain media outlets share an ideological (liberal or conservative) bias. In essence, the tone of a news story can greatly sway the perceptions of the public, particularly in its discussion of the President's image.

Moreover, the interview subjects and the quotations that are used have a direct correlation to the overall message of the story.

For instance, which public officials are quoted and what are their party attachments? What questions are they asked and how do they respond?

Therefore, these choices that journalists have to make on a daily basis help to identify the biases that might exist beneath the surface. These different classifications of tone can produce quantitative results that can be used to craft a more conclusive statement about ideological slant pertaining to certain media outlets.

With these results, one can look over a two-week span of news stories and more definitely verify which news organizations have not remained even-handed and impartial during their coverage of September 11, the London bombings, the Sir Lanka tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.

Only after completing this process can we begin to assess the integrity of the American press and determine its ultimate effect on the political landscape of this country.