Why the Media Has to be Biased

Sure, this is the mainstay of conspiracy nuts the world over, Conservative fanatics believe the Liberal elitists are out to get them, the Liberal equivalent thinks the corporate-owned propaganda outlets are out to get them, and they are both talking about the same people. Like all the big, widespread paranoid fantasies, like the ones around the John F. Kennedy assassination and the (possibly fake) moon-landing, there is an element of truth, a reason to at least look twice and ask questions. As with those stories, however, the conspiracy communities are worried about the wrong things. They see the anomalies, but have jumped to the wrong conclusions about them.

You can investigate all you want, you can surf around on Internet message-boards and blogs looking for the latest speculations, ask your fellow paranoiacs for their take on something something, and in the end all you will have is your gut-feeling. Conspiracy nuts are woefully short on actual, provable facts. Basically, it’s kind of like acting where they all agree to pretend that something is true when there is no solid evidence behind it. The first real, obvious reason that the news media, from your favorite cable news channel to your local newspaper, has to have an agenda, is the fact that they have commercials.

Money

You can’t make money in the news business while pretending to be fair and unbiased. People like easy decisions and complete, providing them with total truth makes choices hard because it will include all the bad things along with the good. If you are selling a car, you don’t disclose the negative points, you pretend those don’t exist. People who have already decided don’t want to hear bad things about their decisions because it reflects on them personally.

The fact is that the news media doesn’t sell information, it sells validation. If it simplifies complex matters so that a 10 year-old can understand them, then the audience feels smart, like it has a handle on what’s going in the country. It reports on a story about a politician putting him in a positive light then that politician’s supporters feel justified in backing their candidate and reassured by the news story, they get a positive feeling and will tune in tomorrow.

The media makes it’s money by being biased. With a bunch of outlets who simply reported the same thing without taking sides, nobody would be particularly interested in the news.