Do you trust the media to give an accurate account of world news?

I watched the CNN build up to the american election and was gob-smacked by the distorted bias they put on every story - they only ran anti-obama stories (e.g. about how he was going bankupt the coal industry, when he had actually said he would impose big fines on heavy polluters) and also the only foriegn news was about american attacks on villages in iraq, and when there had been car bombs that killed 27 people in bahgdad, they never even mentioned it.
The BBC covered it, and their election coverage was ridiculously pro-obama. Although they were more obssessed with an historic black president than any of his policies...

At least the BBC still have reporters stationed around the world, even though they are cutting back.
Al-jazeera are the most prolific channel in that sense i guess and worth a watch.

The solution?
Dont trust everything you see or read, and dont just read one source.

Oh, and go and visit these places and see for yourself - Then you get a nice holiday too!

Reply to this

All news is biased and I think it's impossible to find "unbiased" media out there. There is so much information out there that it can't realistically fit into a single news programme (or newspaper, whatever your medium), which requires some sort of editorial selection of what information to communicate and how to communicate it. This in itself brings bias. It's unavoidable.

My view is that we should accept that all news has some sort of bias reflecting the agendas or perspectives of their sources, as Mell suggests above, and instead look to multiple sources to understand the various perspectives around a particular issue. In so doing, the reader should distill what they think is "the truth", which of course will result from their own individual biases. To give an example in response to Mell's posting above, I think the UN is highly influenced by the individual agendas of its member countries and no single body should be responsible for approving or disapproving information to be publicly communicated. One has to just do a Google search on the member countries of the former United Nations Commission on Human Rights (and its successor, the UN Human Rights Council) to understand why.

For what it matters, I read a variety of news from different countries and organizations - which does include mainstream and non-mainstream. Given that we all have lives to lead outside of reading the news, the best we can hope is that what we reads gives us as full a perspective as possible to make informed judgments...but must always remain open to alternative perspectives when discussing the news with others. Reply to this

I take all news with a grain of salt.

ALL news media is sensationalized. Reply to this

I agree all media has some inherent bias and its all sensationalized to varying degrees. I do think certain channels are worse for this than others - the large 24 hour TV news stations seem to be in competition with each other to see who can be most sensationalist and carry the least actual news content. I speak especially of CNN and BBC, having seen FOX a few times I wouldn't even describe that as news.
They all decide what to report and perhaps more importantly what not to report.
Al Jazeera is better in covering a wider range of stories and issues I think and whilst not without bias its middle east coverage is usually better and more in depth than CNN or BBC, and the bias is at least from a different angle/perspective.

I agree travel can help us to understand things in a much better way but unless you find yourself in the centre of a major news event (and maybe not even then) you will never know what really happened.
I have been to places like Kurdistan/Eastern Turkey or Tibet/China where there is a huge difference in what is going on/what has happened according to which sides media you believe. It is still very hard to understand things and know what is the 'truth' even when you travel to these places.
Travelling has taught me that there are as many truths as there are people in the world, everybody has an opinion, a hundred people can witness the same event and each will give a different take on it. This is only amplified by the media, however noble their intentions may be.

The politicizing of the news is a different issue though. It is this that leads us to believe Jordan is dangerous, Iranians are all terrorists etc. and that dictatorships are bad/dangerous. I agree CNN and BBC don't actually make sweeping statements like that but they constantly report on certain places in a very negative way that causes the majority of the audience to take these kind of messages away with them. I have never seen anything in the western media that came close to representing Iran or Syria in a fair light, most westerners regard these countries as dangerous based on ideas they have got from the media, yet they are 2 of the nicest and safest places I have ever been.

I used to think the BBC was reputable and unbiased etc. etc. and it is/was good at promoting this image, at least within the UK. I feel particularly cheated by the BBC, maybe because in Britain we are forced to fund it, to discover through travelling that they are really just as politicized, sensationalist and biased as everyone else. Coverage of Middle Eastern issues is heavily one-sided towards western and Israeli interests and their China-bashing is actually quite disgusting in my opinion.

Robin Reply to this

charlie brooker's screenwipe on rolling news springs to mind:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5RRmE0_n0K4

(made for the bbc, sending up the bbc, yet still broadcast by the bbc. They do try!) Reply to this

seems I had a hand in kickstarting this one when I said It's always good to go to a place & see that it's nothing like the image you see in the media...

most of us who have travelled quickly learn (if we weren't already aware) that what you see in the media isn't the whole truth. however we are all intelligent enough to realise that for a surprising number of our peers (largely those who haven't left the comfort of home), tv & newspapers do represent the truth.

despite my already varied travels, there were plenty of people ready to tell me not go go near the middle east as it was full of terrorists; my brother was even warned before he left the uk (by an intelligent person) that he would be shot as soon as he arrived.

what we often forget is how strangely blinkered some people's views are; in Jordan we met a family who were shocked that we were going to Syria; far too dangerous they said. Yet their next stop was Israel - a place that is far more well known for its troubles than Syria. I really was bemused by their logic.

it doesn't matter where the information has come from - for many people it is human nature to accept whatever they are told as truth; government travel warnings can be as deceiving as the media; a few years ago I gave a talk to a group of tourism students at a large university in New Zealand. I edited a travel warning (from the Australian Govt's website) & asked the students which country I was describing. Answers varied from Iraq to Indonesia - no one guessed correctly. The answer was New Zealand - the Australian Govt had managed to make NZ equally as dangerous as war zones & so called terrorist hot spots......





Reply to this

Do guide books (lonley planet, rough guide, bradt, sunday newspaper travel sections) fall into this catagory of 'media outlets'?

I find they distort your expectations (good and bad) and also promote shallow or one sided ideas of places, regions and even the whole point of travelling!
A lot of people only do what the guide book tells them, go wher they recommend and then expect it to be exactly as it says in the book. They get annoyed when reality fails to live up to their guide book.

nothing beats travelling with open eyes and very little baggage. Reply to this

For example, many countries want to cover up the ugly bits in their recent history (an example that comes to mind is Tiannamen Square here in China), in which case the media's angle is vital in completing our understanding of what happened.

I am not so sure the Chinese government are trying to cover up what happened on Tiannamen. I think they want to portray those who took part in the demonstration as hooligans who want to destroy the country. They are doing the same with the activists who are currently in prison in China. In fact, they are doing it about anybody who does not agree with the government. They even try to apply criminal accusations to the Dalai Lama.

There are a certain pecentage of the Chinese who are benefitting economically at the moment who peddle the same government propaganda. Not sure if they believe what they say themselves but they dont want anything to change for some reason. Media sources from outside China are the only way we can hear and read about interviews with Chinese political activists. Reply to this