ShmoopTube

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We speak student!

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Media Literacy

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Bias? Try us!

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a la Shmoop

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Bias? Try us.

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Deb, define for us what bias is.

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Bias in the sense of prejudice.

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Yes. Bias is basically belief,

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either negative or positive, in one direction or another,

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about a certain subject.

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So, we usually think of bias as being negative.

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I don't like a specific politician,

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so I am biased against them.

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But you can also be biased for something.

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I do like that politician, then I am biased for them.

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[ woo! ]

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And the most important thing to remember about bias is that

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everyone has a bias about everything.

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Very few instances exist in which someone

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is completely neutral about something.

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So Shmoop, we're biased all the time and we say this in our lessons.

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We think education is valuable.

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That's a bias toward education.

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So even if it's a bias that almost everyone agrees on, it's still a bias.

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And it's just something to be aware of,

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that you kind of believe whatever anyone says to you.

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And you have to remember, well they believe what they're saying

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for a specific reason. And maybe not everyone does agree with them.

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Talk to us about some of the elements that

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can help us identify bias.

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So, let's say you're reading an article on the Internet

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and you're trying to identify the bias in it.

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The first thing you need to do is consider the source.

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If that source is known for being

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specifically biased in one direction or another --

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The classic example is Fox news versus MSNBC.

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You're reading Fox news, you kind of understand that it is

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biased toward the right. You're reading MSNBC,

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bias toward the left.

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Just go into it knowing that.

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It does not mean you cannot use those sources.

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It just means you have to be aware of the bias.

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So considering the source is important.

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Considering the author.

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Does that author have

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a history of being biased in one direction or another?

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[ evil laugh ]

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Check out some other articles they've written.

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Maybe this piece seems pretty neutral,

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but then you Google the author

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and you find out that they've written

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a lot of letters to the editor

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that are really left-leaning or right-leaning or really

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pro-war, anti-war, whatever the case is.

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Another thing to do is check for accuracy.

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If the author is giving stats

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or quoting things, make sure they're right.

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If they're not accurate,

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probably there's a lot of bias.

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If everything they're quoting is accurate,

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they're ideally less biased,

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but then you have to check for omissions.

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What stats aren't they quoting?

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You have to make sure that they're considering both sides.

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And that then leaves one of the last things,

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which is oversimplification.

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You wanna look in the source and say,

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"Is this issue being oversimplified by the author?

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Are they only showing one side of it

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or are they making really broad statements

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without getting into the nitty gritty?"

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Because oversimplification can be a pretty obvious sign of bias.

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Got it. Understood.

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Where do we go for

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a neutral perspective on things?

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Are there any unbiased news sources?

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No, there really doesn't exist an unbiased source.

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There are certain sources that

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are more -- The BBC is a good example, right?

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Where it's slightly more reliable than MSNBC or Fox News,

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for sure.

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But you kind of want to base it more

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on the individual author or speaker of the source,

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because every source is leaning in one direction or another.

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So when it comes to the news

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and current events, almost every single thing you see is going to be biased.

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[ whoop ]

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What is bias?

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How can we identify bias?

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Are there are any unbiased news sources?

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[ silly laugh ]

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