9.
The Media – Mainstream liberal media has been attacked in recent elections and referendums
as a pillar of an establishment which can no longer be trusted.
Talk about whether this attack is justified, how we get the news these days in the age of social
media and what the future holds for the media.
INTRODUCTION
- We live in a time of political fury and hardening cultural divides. But if there is one thing on
which virtually everyone is agreed, it is that the news and information we receive is biased.
Can we trust on mainstream liberal media?
- Both the left and the right feel misrepresented and misunderstood by political institutions
and the media due to many people believe that the news media do a poor job of separating
facts from opinion.
- Does ideological bias shape what news journalists choose to cover? Many people are
focused almost exclusively on presentation bias in the news, but bias can also arise earlier: in
the selection of news to cover.
o Journalists state that they strongly value objectivity in reporting the news. However,
being liberal and expressing liberal gatekeeping bias in the choice of news to cover
are clearly two different things. Despite their best attempts to maintain high
standards of objectivity, journalists may omit news stories that do not adhere to
their own predispositions.
- Identifying gatekeeping bias in news coverage has proven to be incredibly difficult. At the
end, we only view the final product, and we cannot observe the full set of stories that might
have been available in the world for journalists to potentially cover.
- Every time a mainstream media agency reports the news, they can instantly be met with the
retort: but what about this other event, in another time and another place, that you failed to
report? What about the bits you left out? It is not typically the media’s lies that provoke the
greatest fury online, but the discovery that an important event has been ignored or
downplayed.
How we get the news these days in the age of social media?
- The single biggest change in our society is that we now have an unimaginable excess of news
and content. The explosion of information available to us is making it harder, not easier, to
achieve consensus on truth.
- Our relationship to information and news is now entirely different: it has become an active
and critical one, that is deeply suspicious of the official line.
- One way in which seemingly frameless media has transformed public life over recent years is
in the elevation of photography and video as arbiters of truth, as opposed to written
testimony or numbers: “Pics or it didn’t happen”
o The notion that “the camera doesn’t lie” has a peculiar hold over our imaginations.
o Then consider the status of photography and video. It is not just that photographic
evidence can be manipulated to mislead, but that questions will always survive
regarding camera angle and context. What happened before or after a camera
started rolling? What was outside the shot? These questions provoke suspicion,
often with good reason.
What the future holds for the media?
- The media are fundamental in our day to day, but it is a fact that the future of media is
continuing to turn to digital media for entertainment, news, and business. That is why many
people believe that the written press has its days numbered.
- The key thing is that the elites of government and the media have lost their monopoly over
the provision of information, but retain their prominence in the public eye.
CONCLUSION
- Trust in the media is low, but this entrenched scepticism long predates the internet or
contemporary populism.
- Unbiased political media coverage is vital for a healthy democracy. Most people want their
news free from political bias. So we have to be clear that an independent, professional
media is what we need to defend at the present moment
OTHER VOCABULARY
- Bias: sesgo/tendencia
- Biased, unbiased – parcial, imparcial
- Leftwing/ left leaning: de izquierdas
- Rightwing: de derechas
- To have a skew to the left/right: tener tendencia a la izq/derecha
- Far right/left – extrema derecha/izq
- Reach an agreement/commitment: llegar a un acuerdo
