Bias
From WhyNotWiki
Political bias edit (Category edit)
Contents |
[edit] What kind of bias?
This is a cheat-sheet (well, more than that) to help you quickly become aware of the political (and other) biases held by various individual organizations.
(Yes, it reinforces the stereotypical left-right political spectrum [need link] that I dislike -- and for that I apologize, and I may want to list their views on other alternative spectra too eventually -- but I hope this will at least be somewhat helpful.)
I want to track bias other than strictly "political" bias. For example, I'm also interested in the related biases like religious bias (including secular humanism), bias on issues such as evolution/creation, homosexuality, etc.
There is a culture war (c) going on -- a clash of worldviews (c) -- with one publication taking one viewpoint and another taking another -- and a lot of times this is done very subtly. I'd like to help expose people's biases, by documenting them and "forcing" people's hands to be shown. (No more bluffing or hiding.)
I'm not saying biases are bad. They are bad if taken to an extreme such that you are closed minded. But on the other hand biases are inevitable -- every individual thinking human has his or her worldview ... which ultimately forms the basis for his or her biases.
I'm not upset about the mere existence of biases -- I just want people to be fully aware of them. And I especially especially want to expose any organization or publication who claims to be objective/bias-free but is not.
The biases of organizations and companies is a very tricky area. Should companies have biases? Inasmuch as they are controlled by individuals, it seems inevitable. But is it fair to "force" them on others?
Ford condones (supports?) homosexuality. That bothers me. But at the same time, don't they have a right to their biases? As long as I have the freedom to boycott them, for example, as long as freedom of speech and protest lives in America, do I have a right to complain?
[edit] (Mainstream) Media outlets
| Who | What bias | Claims to be unbiased? | Notes / References / Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fox | Unmistakably conservative | Yes (Liars) | |
| CBS | |||
| 60 Minutes | |||
| Nightline | |||
| Vogue | Liberal | Coulter | |
| Cosmopolitan | Liberal | Coulter | |
| GQ | Liberal | Coulter | |
| Esquire | Liberal | Coulter | |
| Time | Liberal | Coulter | |
| Newsweek | Liberal | Coulter | |
[edit] Online / web sites
| Who | What bias | Claims to be unbiased? | Notes / References / Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ | Liberal | Basically (find citation) | Bias on Wikipedia |
| http://www.conservapedia.com/ | Conservative | No. Claims to have a conservative worldview. | |
| Center for American Progress (CampusProgress.org, ...) | "Progressive" (Anti-Bush, Anti-conservatives, "pro civil rights", wants to fix global warming, against Iraq war, ...) | ||
| http://www.theocracywatch.org/ | Pro-abortion [1], pro-gay-marriage [2] | They appear to make an effort to come across as somewhat neutral and objective, insofar as their articles are largely composed of quotations from other (often respectable) people/publications. So it may appear that they are simply showing you the facts/quotes objectively and allowing you to make whatever judgment you may, but by the quotes they decide to use or not use, their bias is clearly shown. | |
| http://www.defconamerica.org/ | Liberal, pro-evolution-origin-hypothesis-taught-in-public-school, anti-Creation-evidence-taught-in-public-school. But at times actually somewhat tolerant/sympathetic to religious adherents. So maybe their admirable claimed primary gaol of defending of the Constitution is not completely undermined by their political bias... | ||
[edit] Personalities
| Who | What bias | Notes / References / Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Ann Coulter | Extreme conservative | |
| Rush Limbaugh | ||
| ↓↓ Bill O'Reilly (Fox) | Extreme neoconservative | [3] [4] [5] |
| Sean Hannity | ? | |
| Howard Stern | ||
| Keith Olberman | ||
| Stephen Colbert | Liberal? | |
| Jay Leno | ||
| David Letterman | ||
| Michael Moore | Liberal, anti-gun | |
[edit]
Coulter, How to Talk to a Liberal, p. 317:
But the magazine [George] founded and edited by the scion of the country's most famous Democratic family was truly a political magazine, not a Democratic magazine (as Vogue, Cosmopolitan, GQ, Esquire, Time, and Newsweek are).
