by Peter Ruzzo

Created on: August 28, 2010   Last Updated: August 29, 2010

The media today operates on one simple premise; people believe what they want to believe, irrespective of whether or not what they believe is indeed true or not. This is a powerful psychological tool media outlets use to sell their brands and a dangerous one at that. The American psyche is fragile and easily manipulated in a post 9-11 era. The underlining vitriol in debates stemming from healthcare, global warming, the Great Recession, immigration, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mosques, religious freedom, same sex marriage, stem cell research, and abortion lies in the insecurity that Americans are feeling about their place in the world. The media has exploited this insecurity for the sake of ratings and profits.

One only has to look at the current political environment to understand that there are two pervasive ideological biases being touted in the media. The ideological battle between conservatives and liberals is being played out on the grand stage of cable and local news. Whatever your political bias or leanings determines what “news” you chose to take in or what news you chose to filter out. The problem is is that our filters have become muddled with too much information and it has become difficult to sort through what is truth and what is not truth. A serious line has been crossed that has compromised journalistic integrity and has confounded political discourse in this country. 

There is no doubt that the media takes liberties when reporting stories. Hyperbole is the first polysyllabic word journalism students learn. Hyperbole sells because it sensitizes viewers, evokes visceral reactions and it’s interesting. News has become entertaining, and to many gospel. The entertainment value of news lies in the personalities that report news and commentate on the news; both ideological perspectives are pervasively represented by ideological demagogues on radio and T.V. A dangerous slippery slope exists when viewers and listeners take what is being said as gospel and have difficulty differentiating what is truth and what is sensationalized. That being said, it is our job as citizens of this great democracy to question not only our political leaders, but information that we are being fed through the media. Unfortunately, in our fast-paced society and with many diversions, it has become difficult for the average American to sift through the information.

The media controls the information and can disseminate it at will. There is no doubt that there is a negative political bias in the media but the negative bias in media coverage exists because we have capitulated to accepting it. Fair and balanced news coverage does not exist because viewers have aligned themselves with a media outlet that does not have to be fair and balanced to keep and increase its ratings. Call this what you want, corporate pandering or political biased journalism; a spade is a spade. Politicians, political pundits and staffers are aware of how influential the media is in disseminating information. They use various media outlets and cleverly worded polls to further legislation and political agendas. When was the last time you saw poll numbers on any media outlet but were not privy to the way the polling question was asked on any subject?  Any savvy media outlet can distort poll numbers to construe a political bias. And we’ll never know the difference.

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