Confirmation bias in the media: Show me, tell me

By THOMAS HARTWELL

We, as humans, believe that we are inherently correct and seek out information that agrees with our thinking. How does this apply to our daily thinking or our consumption of products, services, and news?

Confirmation bias, or the interpreting of evidence or information in regards to existing beliefs, has been addressed often in the discussion of the presentation of news. Most believe that there should be no biases in news reporting, and journalists are taught to stay completely objective in the presentation of hard news. While, in a perfect world, consumers of news could watch/read news presented completely objectively and make educated decisions based on what they read, we do not live in a perfect world. News organizations have to incorporate what sells into the presentation of their stories. There is also a consideration of gatekeepers who run the media organizations. While the goal should always be objective reporting, people have a tendency to have strong opinions on political issues, which many times manifest themselves in subtle biases in reporting.

When we explore confirmation bias in the larger media outlets, we often encounter a widely-accepted thought pattern: "CNN and MSNBC are liberal, Fox is conservative." While this is now considered the norm, the media outlets themselves would never come out and admit to it. The media outlets, therefore, must disguise their biases as "just another way of reporting."

Let's look at Fox and MSNBC's reporting of the same story. A racially insensitive joke was told at a charity dinner recently, and both outlets wrote a story on it. Keeping in mind that Fox is considered conservative and MSNBC liberal, there is a subtle difference in the reporting in a couple ways:

Image and story from foxnews.com

Image and story from msnbc.com

1. The headlines: In Fox's case, the headline reads that both Mayor De Blasio and Hillary Clinton take part in the joke and draw criticism. If we consider Fox's possible confirmation bias, it would make sense that they would want to frame Hillary in this way. Whereas, in MSNBC's case, only De Blasio takes part in the joke, and even then it's presented as "coming at a bad time" rather than being "racially-tinged."

2. The visuals: Fox shows Clinton and De Blasio laughing and seemingly celebrating with the headline "racially-tinged joke" hovering above. It seems to be framed as the two enjoying the insensitive comment. MSNBC instead shows Clinton off to the side looking on as the joke is made. This way, she seems to not take part in the joke making. Clinton also is even standing next to the African-American gentleman, further separating herself from the insensitivity.

Images, as we've already seen, can speak a thousand words in reporting, and often do. The images we see can impact our impression of the candidate depicted. For these examples, I'll choose a picture of Ted Cruz from CNN and one from Fox.

Image from cnn.com

Image from foxnews.com

In these cases, the presentation of Ted Cruz is considered in the photos chosen to be published on the sites. CNN's picture choice is less than flattering, while Fox's looks like a campaign flier.

While minds won't necessarily be changed by only images or word choice, the presentation of information or images can alter the way that people think about a subject. Objective news reporting and an educated public would be preferable to what is widely accepted as a biased news environment, but in order to inform the public, the public must want to be informed. If it takes subtle biases (even no-so-subtle ones) to inform them, then so be it -- I'll take the news with a grain of salt.