Bias in the Media essays

Bias in the Media essays News broadcasters have a basic job , that of supplying their viewers with the facts. With this occupation news anchors and reporters can remain seen as human beings, humans with feelings and opinions. However, their job is not to reveal these to the public. Viewers should be able to feel confident that a program will be sharing factual information on subjects and then they will be able to form their own opinions and judgments. Unfortunately with many of todays newsmakers this ideal can not always be made possible. The number of democratic party members is very high in journalism. In fact in a 1996 survey, as reported in a book titled Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News by Bernard Goldberg, a considerable eighty nine percent of journalists voted for Bill Clinton in the presidential election compared to only a forty-three percent vote from the general American population. In particular primary news sources, CNN, CBS, NBC and ABC have long been viewed my many people as possessing and distributing a liberal tone (1). Many viewers are easily swayed to more liberal ways of thinking due to the structure of the reporting by these newscast stations. Many viewers however can realize that the women and men of television are political partisans. They take the facial expressions, aside comments and tone of voice, used by these professionals light heartedly and it has been accepted. However it becomes unaccepted when their political opinions bring about falsities delivered to the public as facts. On September 8th of this year CBS news anchor, Dan Rather, reported documents concerning President George W. Bushs Air National Guard service during his nightly show 60 minutes. Details of the documents included that Bush had been receiving requested special treatment in order to avoid his service commitments. Mr. Rather spent most of the following week defending his sources and the l...