Understand news media bias by learning about five types of bias and five ways it can manifest itself, as well as methods for minimizing it.
News literacy topics
Bias; Digital citizenship; News judgment; Opinion; Standards of quality journalism
Learning objectives
Essential questions
Excerpt
“When gathering information and reporting news stories, journalists follow standards designed to strip away the influence of their own conscious or unconscious biases. After all, who among us can be truly ‘objective’? We’re humans with different backgrounds who bring different perspectives to the table, and we’re all fallible, no matter how rigorous our process. But one thing we all can and must be as journalists is ‘impartial’ in the way we gather and present facts and information. Many people — adults as well as students — confuse commentators, columnists and other opinion journalists with news reporters. They aren’t the same. Most news organizations have both news and opinion journalists, but it’s only the news reporters who are supposed to be unbiased. In fact, the opinion staff and news staff report to different bosses. At many news organizations, the news and the editorial staff are physically separated and might even work on different floors.”
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