Supposed media bias … and a real concern

I generally support the mainstream media. This puts me in a minority position among bloggers, who often accuse the media of biased reporting.

I frequently come across posts on this subject. Right-wing bloggers declaim through clenched teeth that the "MSM" is biased to the left; left-wing bloggers are equally perturbed because news media are biased to the right.

In my university days, one of my profs surprised me by her strong feelings on the subject. At the beginning of her course, she handed out a list of online, alternative sources of news and information.

That was in September, 2001. The prof recognized 9/11 for what it was:  a golden opportunity for right-wing ideologues to seize control of the geo-political agenda. She distrusted the MSM and steered us to alternative, online media which consistently offered a left-wing point of view.

She regarded the internet as a great left-wing resource. But the Web is also home to a lot of alternative, right-wing commentary.

Over at Kerckhoff Coffeehouse, where the bloggers are unapologetically right-wing, Oven recently commented, Most of the mainstream (liberal) media portray Iraq as an ever-deepening mess. … What credible sources are putting a positive spin on Iraq these days?

Dr. Bean replied,

GREAT question! Where do you get pro-war stuff nowadays? The answer is the web. Keep your eye on Michael Yon’s blog, Little Green Footballs, and National Review Online. They’ll give you the straight dope from people on the ground and it’s much better news than you’re hearing anywhere else.

Let's consider this for a moment. Some alternative media are to the right of the MSM; other alternative media are to the left of the MSM. So much for accusations of bias! Clearly the MSM does not occupy either extreme.

Despite what I've just said, I think the MSM are left-leaning when it comes to social issues (here in Canada, at least), and right-leaning when it comes to economic issues. So are most Canadians:  it is indeed the "mainstream" position. But that's a generalization. If you consider individual journalists, you will discover exceptions to the general rule.

The Ottawa Citizen gives a lot of column space to David Warren, whose politics are very right-wing for a Canadian. Meanwhile, the fiscally conservative Globe and Mail publishes a regular column by Naomi Klein, a leading light of the anti-globalization movement. Presumably this didn't come about by accident; the policy of both newspapers is to strive for balance.

Why, then, did the MSM get the story wrong — very wrong — when it reported on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?

I'm sure you remember some of the horrific tales which were reported at the time:  a child was raped, dozens of bodies were stacked in the freezer of the Convention Centre, snipers were shooting people just for the thrill of it.

The tales were false, or at least greatly exaggerated. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the MSM published highly inaccurate information.

The following story was published in the Los Angeles Times on September 27. In brief, Rumors supplanted accurate information and media magnified the problem. Rapes, violence and estimates of the dead were wrong.

BATON ROUGE, La. — Maj. Ed Bush recalled how he stood in the bed of a pickup truck in the days after Hurricane Katrina, struggling to help the crowd outside the Louisiana Superdome separate fact from fiction. Armed only with a megaphone and scant information, he might have been shouting into, well, a hurricane.

The National Guard spokesman's accounts about rescue efforts, water supplies and first aid all but disappeared amid the roar of a 24-hour rumor mill at New Orleans' main evacuation shelter. Then a frenzied media recycled and amplified many of the unverified reports.

"It just morphed into this mythical place where the most unthinkable deeds were being done," Maj. Bush said Monday of the Superdome.

His assessment is one of several in recent days to conclude that newspapers and television exaggerated criminal behavior in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, particularly at the overcrowded Superdome and Convention Center.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune on Monday described inflated body counts, unverified "rapes," and unconfirmed sniper attacks as among examples of "scores of myths about the dome and Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the media and even some of New Orleans' top officials."

Indeed, Mayor C. Ray Nagin told a national television audience on "Oprah" three weeks ago of people "in that frickin' Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people." …

"It doesn't take anything to start a rumor around here," Louisiana National Guard 2nd Lt. Lance Cagnolatti said at the height of the Superdome relief effort. "There's 20,000 people in here. Think when you were in high school. You whisper something in someone's ear. By the end of the day, everyone in school knows the rumor — and the rumor isn't the same thing it was when you started it."

Follow-up reporting has discredited reports of a 7-year-old being raped and murdered at the Superdome, roving bands of armed gang members attacking the helpless, and dozens of bodies being shoved into a freezer at the Convention Center. …

State officials this week said their counts of the dead at the city's two largest evacuation points fell far short of early rumors and news reports. Ten bodies were recovered from the Superdome and four from the Convention Center, said Bob Johannessen, spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.

(National Guard officials put the body count at the Superdome at six, saying the other four bodies came from the area around the stadium.)

Of the 841 recorded hurricane-related deaths in Louisiana, four are identified as gunshot victims, Johannessen said. One victim was found in the Superdome but was believed to have been brought there, and one was found at the Convention Center, he added.

Why did the MSM get the story so very wrong? The LA Times identifies these factors:

• telephone breakdowns, which disrupted communications;
• racial prejudice:  a predisposition to believe the worst of evacuees who were poor African Americans;
• rash statements from public officials:  journalists might have hesitated to publish some of the more sordid stories, but any such hesitation evaporated when top New Orleans officials provided sensational accounts of their own.

Whatever the explanation may be, the MSM failed in its job. And this is a serious problem. News media perform a very important function in democratic countries. Freedom of expression is protected precisely because it is important to get the facts out when the public interest is at stake. News media are responsible to get the facts straight — no excuses.

Here's my explanation of what went wrong, for what it's worth. (Bearing in mind that everybody has their prejudices, including me.)

News media must attract a readership and turn a profit. To that end, the more sensational the story, the better. When other news media are reporting rapes and bodies stacked like cordwood, you'd better do the same. It can easily degenerate into a race to the bottom.

Moreover, the capitalist system is hostile to sober second thought among journalists. A prudent journalist checks and double-checks her facts. But who has time for that if another media outlet may publish before you?

Left-wing bias? Right-wing bias? — I think such concerns, though they are ubiquitous in the blogosphere, are greatly exaggerated.

My concern is with the distorting influence of capitalism. It turns news reporting into a competition — who will get the story out first? — and rewards sensationalism rather than accuracy.