Media bias is the bias or perceived bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening the standards of journalism, rather than the perspective of an individual journalist or article. The direction and degree of media bias in various countries is widely disputed. Practical limitations to media neutrality include the inability of journalists to report all available stories and facts, and the requirement that selected facts be linked into a coherent narrative. Government influence, including overt and covert censorship, biases the media in some countries, for example North Korea and Burma. Market forces that result in a biased presentation include the ownership of the news source, concentration of media ownership, the selection of staff, the preferences of an intended audience, and pressure from advertisers. There are a number of national and international watchdog groups that report on bias in the media. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky in their book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988) proposed a propaganda model to explain the systematic biases of U.S. media as a consequence of the pressure to create a stable and profitable business. In this view, the regime creates five filters that bias news in favor of U.S. corporate interests. Their propaganda model first and foremost discusses self-censorship through the corporate system (see corporate censorship); that reporters and especially editors share and/or acquire values with corporate elites in order to further their careers. Those that do not are usually weeded out or marginalized. Such examples have been dramatized in fact-based movie dramas as Good Night, and Good Luck and The Insider or demonstrated in the documentary The Corporation.[16][17] George Orwell originally wrote a preface for his novel Animal Farm (1945), which focused on the British self-censorship of the time. "The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. ... [Things are] kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that particular fact." The preface was not published with most copies of the book. The propaganda model suggests that advertising dollars are essential for funding most media sources and links this with media coverage. For example, according to FAIR, 'When Al Gore proposed launching a progressive TV network, a Fox News executive told Advertising Age (10/13/03): "The problem with being associated as liberal is that they wouldn't be going in a direction that advertisers are really interested in.... If you go out and say that you are a liberal network, you are cutting your potential audience, and certainly your potential advertising pool, right off the bat."[18] Furthermore "an internal memo from ABC Radio Networks to its affiliates reveals scores of powerful sponsors have a standing order that their commercials never be placed on syndicated Air America programming that airs on ABC affiliates.... The list, totaling 90 advertisers, includes some of the largest and most well-known corporations advertising in the U.S.: Wal-Mart, GE, Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Bank of America, Fed-Ex, Visa, Allstate, McDonald's, Sony and Johnson & Johnson. The U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Navy are also listed as advertisers who don't want their commercials to air on Air America." According to Noam Chomsky, American commercial media encourage controversy within a narrow range of opinion, in order to give the impression of open debate, but do not report on news that falls outside that range. Herman and Chomsky argue that the logic in some of the conservative arguments regarding liberal bias are flawed. They argue that comparing the media product to the voting record of the journalists is akin to thinking auto-factory workers design the cars they help produce. Indeed, they argue that the media owners and news makers are the ones with an agenda, and they argue that this agenda is subordinated to corporate interests that they view as often leaning right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias_in_the_United_States

• published: 11 May 2014
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