The Lame-Stream Media or How To Evaluate Claims of Bias
Republicans and conservatives seldom tire of lambasting the media for its bias against Republicans. In our age of over-quantification, "watchdog" groups assign scientific numbers to the bias. Like this article from a while back about President Trump's first 100 days.
Ratings Not Bias?
First, I wonder how much of the alleged bias can be explained simply by ratings. News organizations like CNN, Fox and MSNBC are for-profit. In depth point-counterpoint doesn't scream "watch me." If it did, PBS News Hour would be a juggernaut. Instead, we have infotainment, emphasis on the -tainment. Looking at the quoted paragraph above, the last sentence invites a question but also answers that question: Why don't the beta-cucks in the MSM cover all the jobs President Trump is creating? Because they are busy getting ratings covering controversies.
Separation Science
"But they're not real controversies. They are just fake news."
- Sean Spicer, probably.
This brings us to the crux of the discussion. Behind all the claims of media bias lies an implicit assumption about the goodness or badness of the conduct the media covers. I have not seen a very good explanation of how to separate a negative, "biased" story from a story that covers something negative. What is the appropriate method to do that? When is a negative story justified? Conservatives claim that negative treatment by the media is unjustified but they fail to make that specific argument. Instead, they assume it is true and cry bias.
Unpacking that a bit further, proponents of media bias often have an unstated premise that the only way coverage can be "fair" is when the coverage is exactly 50% for and 50% against. Look at the article linked earlier citing 89% negative coverage. So the argument goes:
Or, more simply:
Thus we have an argument that is correctly reasoned but is nonetheless unsound.*** As Judge Aldisert wrote, "[s]ound logical reasoning requires both truth in the premises as well as validity in the relationship of the premises." The media bias argument succeeds at the latter but fails at the the former. Media bias theory proponents spend too much time presenting evidence for the minor premise and neglect to offer sufficient justification for accepting the truth of the major premise.
Why is the numerical parity criterion a bad premise to accept? For starters, it cannot help us come to the correct conclusion about easy cases.
[*** Starting with "if A then B" means that concluding "if not B then not A" is formally valid]
The Following Is Not a Comparison Between President Trump and Hitler
Let's take easy, extreme examples. Hitler and Stalin. I think we all agree that Hitler and Stalin were bad hombres. That's easy. Let's pretend either one were our current president trying to enact the same policies they did when they were alive and in power. Every day, Sean Spicer wiggles out from the bushes to stand at the pulpit in front of the press corps making the case for "holocaust centers" and highlighting the newest, gave offense by the Jews against the state. Magically, our press corps is still independent in this fanciful example. They get to ask all the questions they want and publish whatever they want.
We would (and should) expect negative media coverage, right? Why? Because what Hitler is trying to do is bad. I would hope that the negative media coverage would be close to 100% but let's pretend it is 95% negative (cause, you know, InfoWars). In judging a claim of media bias though, to what use do we put that 95% negative number? Should we say, "well it isn't 50/50 so the media must be biased"? I don't think anyone would seriously argue that point. We would be horrified by 50% positive coverage of Hitler's final solution, wouldn't we? Is that unbiased media coverage? I suppose if the only thing we care about is exactly equal airtime and equal quantities of good and bad stories. But it still seems skewed, doesn't it? 50% positive coverage of genocide seems both undesirable and, more germane to the current discussion, biased. It seems unjustified. But why?
It seems biased because evaluating bias includes more than just the percentage of negative coverage.
What Lies Beneath
Instead of pure numerical parity, media coverage should reflect the goodness or badness of the conduct it covers. This creates a messy, subjective decision-making process for evaluating bias but I believe that political questions are fundamentally moral questions so I'm ok with that trade-off. These purely numerical assessments of positive and negative stories are problematic because they are (1) subjective whether a story is positive or negative, particularly at the margins; and (2) irrelevant when divorced from the underlying conduct the story covers.
In other words, knowing that 89% of coverage of President Trump is negative is only meaningful if we know that 89% does not reflect the goodness/badness of the actions; that it is unjustified. I think we tend to leap at quantitative analyses because it is easier than engaging in the difficult and seldom conclusive work of determining the goodness or badness of an action. Instead, let someone else categorize it and I'll use their data if they make me feel right. That's a poor but easy way to evaluate something as nuanced as negative press coverage.
Looking at the Trump administration and its impressive 89% negative coverage, what are we to do with that 89% negative number? Before we can make any claim from it, we have to decide if his actions justify that much negative treatment. Aaaaand we're back to where we started: is what President Trump does bad or is it good/neutral with unjustly negative coverage? Claims of media bias try to circumvent that question by implicitly assuming the conclusion is true i.e. Trump deserves positive media coverage some amount greater than 11%.
When I see someone address a question of substantive or moral goodness by citing media bias, I cringe because it's a dodge (no surprise coming from politicians or spokespeople). They are unwilling or unable to make a moral, political or philosophical argument for their position so they resort to a tangential argument that assumes the very conclusion they are trying to prove.
I think President Trump has done a poor job, has been ineffective, has comported himself without the dignity befitting a president, attempted at every turn to reduce the number of stakeholders in American success and has shown a unique lack of understanding of executive's role in our constitutional order. 89% negative seems about right to me but that's just my biased opinion.
As President Trump approaches the end of his first 100 days in office, he has received by far the most hostile press treatment of any incoming American president, with the broadcast networks punishing him with coverage that has been 89% negative. The networks largely ignored important national priorities such as jobs and the fight against ISIS, in favor of a news agenda that has been dominated by anti-Trump controversies and which closely matches what would be expected from an opposition party.
Ratings Not Bias?
First, I wonder how much of the alleged bias can be explained simply by ratings. News organizations like CNN, Fox and MSNBC are for-profit. In depth point-counterpoint doesn't scream "watch me." If it did, PBS News Hour would be a juggernaut. Instead, we have infotainment, emphasis on the -tainment. Looking at the quoted paragraph above, the last sentence invites a question but also answers that question: Why don't the beta-cucks in the MSM cover all the jobs President Trump is creating? Because they are busy getting ratings covering controversies.
Separation Science
"But they're not real controversies. They are just fake news."
- Sean Spicer, probably.
This brings us to the crux of the discussion. Behind all the claims of media bias lies an implicit assumption about the goodness or badness of the conduct the media covers. I have not seen a very good explanation of how to separate a negative, "biased" story from a story that covers something negative. What is the appropriate method to do that? When is a negative story justified? Conservatives claim that negative treatment by the media is unjustified but they fail to make that specific argument. Instead, they assume it is true and cry bias.
Unpacking that a bit further, proponents of media bias often have an unstated premise that the only way coverage can be "fair" is when the coverage is exactly 50% for and 50% against. Look at the article linked earlier citing 89% negative coverage. So the argument goes:
Major premise: Fair media coverage is 50% positive
Minor premise: Coverage of President Trump is not 50% positive
Conclusion: Coverage of President Trump is not fair
Or, more simply:
If media coverage is fair it will have 50% positive coverage. The media coverage is not 50% positive, so it must not be fair.
Thus we have an argument that is correctly reasoned but is nonetheless unsound.*** As Judge Aldisert wrote, "[s]ound logical reasoning requires both truth in the premises as well as validity in the relationship of the premises." The media bias argument succeeds at the latter but fails at the the former. Media bias theory proponents spend too much time presenting evidence for the minor premise and neglect to offer sufficient justification for accepting the truth of the major premise.
Why is the numerical parity criterion a bad premise to accept? For starters, it cannot help us come to the correct conclusion about easy cases.
[*** Starting with "if A then B" means that concluding "if not B then not A" is formally valid]
The Following Is Not a Comparison Between President Trump and Hitler
Let's take easy, extreme examples. Hitler and Stalin. I think we all agree that Hitler and Stalin were bad hombres. That's easy. Let's pretend either one were our current president trying to enact the same policies they did when they were alive and in power. Every day, Sean Spicer wiggles out from the bushes to stand at the pulpit in front of the press corps making the case for "holocaust centers" and highlighting the newest, gave offense by the Jews against the state. Magically, our press corps is still independent in this fanciful example. They get to ask all the questions they want and publish whatever they want.
We would (and should) expect negative media coverage, right? Why? Because what Hitler is trying to do is bad. I would hope that the negative media coverage would be close to 100% but let's pretend it is 95% negative (cause, you know, InfoWars). In judging a claim of media bias though, to what use do we put that 95% negative number? Should we say, "well it isn't 50/50 so the media must be biased"? I don't think anyone would seriously argue that point. We would be horrified by 50% positive coverage of Hitler's final solution, wouldn't we? Is that unbiased media coverage? I suppose if the only thing we care about is exactly equal airtime and equal quantities of good and bad stories. But it still seems skewed, doesn't it? 50% positive coverage of genocide seems both undesirable and, more germane to the current discussion, biased. It seems unjustified. But why?
It seems biased because evaluating bias includes more than just the percentage of negative coverage.
What Lies Beneath
Instead of pure numerical parity, media coverage should reflect the goodness or badness of the conduct it covers. This creates a messy, subjective decision-making process for evaluating bias but I believe that political questions are fundamentally moral questions so I'm ok with that trade-off. These purely numerical assessments of positive and negative stories are problematic because they are (1) subjective whether a story is positive or negative, particularly at the margins; and (2) irrelevant when divorced from the underlying conduct the story covers.
In other words, knowing that 89% of coverage of President Trump is negative is only meaningful if we know that 89% does not reflect the goodness/badness of the actions; that it is unjustified. I think we tend to leap at quantitative analyses because it is easier than engaging in the difficult and seldom conclusive work of determining the goodness or badness of an action. Instead, let someone else categorize it and I'll use their data if they make me feel right. That's a poor but easy way to evaluate something as nuanced as negative press coverage.
Looking at the Trump administration and its impressive 89% negative coverage, what are we to do with that 89% negative number? Before we can make any claim from it, we have to decide if his actions justify that much negative treatment. Aaaaand we're back to where we started: is what President Trump does bad or is it good/neutral with unjustly negative coverage? Claims of media bias try to circumvent that question by implicitly assuming the conclusion is true i.e. Trump deserves positive media coverage some amount greater than 11%.
When I see someone address a question of substantive or moral goodness by citing media bias, I cringe because it's a dodge (no surprise coming from politicians or spokespeople). They are unwilling or unable to make a moral, political or philosophical argument for their position so they resort to a tangential argument that assumes the very conclusion they are trying to prove.
I think President Trump has done a poor job, has been ineffective, has comported himself without the dignity befitting a president, attempted at every turn to reduce the number of stakeholders in American success and has shown a unique lack of understanding of executive's role in our constitutional order. 89% negative seems about right to me but that's just my biased opinion.
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