Anson Burlingame, guest columnist: Bias issues deserve public discussion

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September 26, 2009

Why doesn't the news the public trust the media?

Anonymous The Joplin Globe Sat Sep 26, 2009, 08:24 AM CDT

An Associated Press story in the Sept. 14 Globe discussed recent poll results showing American concerns about media bias. The concern is legitimate and deserves public discussion.

The most glaring evidence of media bias is in the television media industry. No doubt that Fox News “slants” its programming toward Republican and right wing positions.

By the same token MSNBC does the same for the Democratic and left wing positions. It is without argument that those stations in both “news” coverage and other programming are biased. To a lesser degree, but still evident, CNN and network news and programming has a liberal slant as well. Talk radio personified by Rush Limbaugh is almost exclusively dominated by right wing rhetoric, in many cases extreme and even perhaps hateful.

In the print media The New York Times is decidedly liberal. Again, to a lesser degree, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times reflect such liberal tendencies as well. The San Diego and Chicago mainline papers are on the other hand more conservative and Republican in news coverage and editorial positions.

The Internet is open to almost everyone. You can easily find positions therein that reflect every possible position on the political spectrum from pure communism to almost total anarchy. Take your pick and you will find it there. Blogs on the online Globe also reflect broad diversity of opinions, though communists and anarchists do not reside therein, or so it seems to me.

Anyone with a satellite dish or online computer can find a station, newspaper or Internet discussion group to reinforce their views. If they choose to listen to or read a broad variety of views they have that choice as well. That is the benefit of the information age and technology and I support it 100 percent.

Everyone should take advantage of all sources of news and information to reach personal positions on any topic in my view. On a combination of issues or single ones, it is not easy to decide where the truth really rests. No single source of news, be it newspaper, TV, radio or the Internet has a corner on the truth.

It is up to us as individuals to do the hard work necessary to find it for ourselves. Any single news source will unintentionally be biased sometime.

We must find our own balance through reading and listening carefully and with as little bias as possible on our own part.

Anson Burlingame lives in Joplin. His blog “I’m Not Sure, Are You?” can be found at www.joplinglobe.com

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Anson Burlingame, guest columnist: Bias issues deserve public discussion

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