How To Detect Bias In News

Media has great power worldwide with followers from all around the world. Everybody have access to see what media puts out. Media should therefore be honest, fair and accurate, but it is not always easy to distinguish genuine and fake. At least not when Photoshop, special effects and editing exists. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to detect bias in Media.

Who are the sources?

Media has a tendency to rely on Official Sources like the government, corporate and establishment think tank. You must be aware of the political perspectives of the sources used in a story.

Is there a lack of diversity?

How is the gender diversity and the race diversity distributed? How many producers, editors, co-workers, chiefs and decision makers are women, gay, lesbian or people of colour?

Are there double standards?

Does media hold a standard for a group of people and another standard for another group? Young people of colour are often to be seen as super dangerous if they commit a crime, but if a white adult commits a crime people think it is tragic and that he was led astray.

Do the headlines and stories match?

Usually a journalist does not write the headlines. Sometimes the headlines and the stories does not match. 

What are the unchallenged assumptions?

From whose point of view is the news reported?

Do stereotypes skew coverage?

Is the language loaded?

Is there a lack of context?

Are stories and important issues featured prominently?

The Journalists use different methods to find out if a source is real or fake. Twitter, Google Maps/Google Earth, Spokeo, Human Sources, The Weathercast and YouTube are just some of them. Some cases are more difficult and need more research than others. For instance, if they find a video of a tornado that sucks up a cow, they can look at past weather forecaster to see if the tornado were present. Other techniques is to use Google Earth to see if the place the film was recorded really exists, they can also find the owner of the video on Spokeo, and ask if the recording is real. They just have to be creative and use social media.