Media Bias in America

The media has been a part of the daily American life for quite some time now. Newspapers, magazines, television shows, radio stations, and the internet are all types of sources of media. Media has semi-recently been introduced on cell phones, and took off right away, mainly due to the portability and easiness of it. Due to this though, it is quite hard to escape. Media quite frequently influences the thoughts and perspectives of American citizens. Media both directly and indirectly influences the public's thoughts. Many people rely solely on one certain media source to provide them their information, which is why it can be so influential at times. Media has many purposes, which include, entertainment, latest stories on celebrities, weather updates, providing news, advertisements, or even keeping in contact with friends. Unfortunately, this idea of a pure media platform was quickly corrupted by those hoping to influence political opinions. Despite this, the media remains popular, and many do not know of the bias currently influencing their opinion. While many think the media is more biased towards liberals than conservatives, I believe that the media is biased against both progressive-liberals and conservatives values, and continues to block, sensor, or just delete posts in favor of, or against these beliefs.

Progressive-liberals are classified as people who believe the government should play an active role in supporting political and social change. They believe in equality for all, and that everyone's opinion matters, which the opposite of what is happening to them. In many cases, currently happening and past, news sources are only reporting the worst of the stories. According to an article from the balance careers, “The Nixon administration said the news media was biased against the U.S. war in Vietnam and the constant negative reports were taking a toll on U.S. military efforts.” Much like today, the news was only focused on the bad things happening, because that is what gets them views and clicks, which is all they’re worried about. This caused major uprisings, because people thought that things were much worse than they actually were. In some cases, marches were actually led and protest were held against Nixon and the government, all because of the bias of the media. Some people even believed that these events were embellished, to show the side of the story they wanted, or get across the point they wanted to. The truth was so skewed, and it was very hard to pick out the truth from lies or exaggerations. Thankfully, some sources and the public learned from these experiences, that the media tends to focus on just the ugly, which is common knowledge in modern day. Another example of this is the 2008 presidential election. The main contestants were Barack Obama and John McCain, who was a liberal. Because the fact that he was a liberal, many media sources brought up negative things about McCain. The media was also accused of siding with Barack Obama. This led to Barack Obama even getting most of the liberals votes, because of the amount of negativity brought up around McCain. Many people saw this as unfair and tried to speak up, but were quickly silenced by the same media sources. These examples show that the media does not favor liberals, or anyone who agrees with them.

Conservatives are defined as people who believe the government should have little to no control over the people and are cautious to change or innovate. They are known for their desire of freedom and their need to be able to make their own decisions. Just like liberals, conservatives are deprived of their freedom when it comes to the press and media. One example of this is James Damore, an engineer that worked for google, who was fired, because he was thought to have made a sexist comment. Since he was fired, he decided to sue and provided many screenshots of what seemed to be threats against anyone who held a conservative viewpoint. This shows direct evidence that bias is present, even within the work environment of these media places. Another example of this is twitter. Twitter has been accused of suppressing conservative beliefs and ideas, while turning a head towards the opposite views. In some cases, they were even accused of banning accounts dedicated to conservative thoughts. Youtube has also been accused of doing this as well. Some people report that their videos have been demonetized simply because it had to do with conservatism, yet the other party has been allowed to monetize their videos, without any problems. These things also contribute to allegations that media is biased towards not just liberals, but also conservatives.

The knight foundation did a survey on citizens, and whether they believed the media was giving them real news or skewed, one-sided stories. The survey showed that the perception of “fake news” has greatly increase, causing people to be more skeptical, and question what is real and what is fake. While only thirty-two percent of Americans believe the media is giving them the whole truth, which had dropped twenty-six percent since 1984, sixty-six believed that the media was giving them opinions rather than facts. This is mostly good news, because it shows that people are getting educated on news, and won’t just believe whatever they see. This also led to a lot of the media platforms providing “fake news” and biased material to be called out and receive lots of criticism, which then led to a reduce in the amount of it. The study also showed that most Americans claim to rely on both conservative and liberal new sources for their information, but one in four admit to getting news from only one source. This also shows progress within citizens, even though I feel that we shouldn’t have to decipher what is true and what is false. This also shows that citizens are taking their time to see multiple sides to the news and stories.

People all across the world consult in the media to provide them their new and information, and sometimes it’s difficult to tell the truth from the biased information. The bias of social media has a huge impact on society, and can sometimes even cause uprisings or protests. The bias has also impacted how people see the news, and have cause people to be more skeptical than they ever were. People no longer trust the media for most information, because of many biased incidents. Media will remain the main source for new, but will continue to be less trusted than previously. The media has a great amount of power, even today with most people being skeptical. I think that bias in the media will always be there, but might decrease due to people spreading the word about it, and refusing to support biased news sources. Unfortunately liberals, conservatives, and anyone else seeking the truth will still have to fight for the truth for many years to come. However people are getting educated on the topics, and are starting to question things for themselves instead of just taking the false information. Hopefully one day we will have unbiased media and news sources. 

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