The media has so many different ways to inject bias into their presentaion that it can be a bit tricky at times to realise it. Simply wording a sentence in a certain way is a common trick.
I watched MSNBC present a poll the other day on the economy as to whether we are in a recession or not. The poll they presented involved asking people to vote and the poll result was much in favor of yes we are in a recession. The news segment brought up gas prices, morgages, unemployment, and the stock market and then went straight to the poll as if polling a bunch of non experts on the subject was a final stamp on the segment.
They didn't even bother to mention that most experts on the economy say we aren't actually in a recession yet in the USA (but believe we will be soon and that it will be a mild one). Nor to they ever bother to realise and bring up that many people voting in their polls are liberals (liberals tend to watch NBC and CNN more so than FOX) of which some would vote negatively even if everything was going well (as long as a Republican is the President) and therefore their poll results are going to be automatically skewed to begin with.
Of course the same occurs on the other news networks also. That's just one example of so many ways things can be distorted as we watch the news and sometimes we may not be aware of it. It wasn't an accident that experts were left out of poll opinion. It didn't just happen. It was selective reporting. And it's a constant thing, in one way or another. |