My bias and I.

As egotistical as it may be, I have resolved to begin this project with a look at how the news media I consume affects my political opinion. I do this for two reasons; first, I want to get a feel for how I'm going to do this, second, I'm a college student. Writing about myself isn't a complete copout. Almost, but not yet complete.

Being a freshman, journalism major at ASU, I am quizzed twice a week on current events. In the few weeks I've been in the class, I have come to see just how much those quizzes affect my grade. The point is, I am much more aware of current events now, than I was three months ago. Everyday, I read the Arizona Republic; either old-school style, with the actual paper and newsprint smell and gray marks on my hands, or on azcentral.com. Most nights or mornings, I will catch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Sometimes, I read The Rolling Stone also, but other than that, I read pointless fashion magazines and watch pointless television. As much as I don't like to admit this, I probably wouldn't read the paper anywhere near daily if the bribery of an acceptable grade didn't strongly motivate me. And, while many would argue that the aforementioned TV shows are viable news shows; I feel that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert dilute the news through humor and intense bias. My diligent viewing of these Comedy Central staples probably doesn't give me credence to say confidentely, "I know what is going on in the world, and I have an intelligent opinion for all of it." Granted, very few people in this country could truthfully say that anyway, but that is an entirely different blog for an entirely different time.

To me, being conservative-raised (recently turned more liberal), I find most of what I watch on The Daily Show or The Colbert Report or read in The Rolling Stone to be quite liberal. So while I enjoy these media outlets, I more-or-less tune them out; because I don't agree with much of what they say. Even though I now find myself sharing views with a liberal side, my involuntary reaction to liberal-biased media is quite extreme. Regardless of whatever moral inclinations I may have, my point is that I cannot seriously consider media that is not objective. I find that I can really trust what I read in The Republic to be unbiased; thus, I find myself to be most influenced by newspaper articles. Anything else, even an article with a conservative voice, will shut down any intellectual processing.

Still, I see no solution to the issue of bias within Journalism. (Come to think of it, there must be a problem in order to come up with a solution.) When conservatives complain about unobjectivity, the only result will be over-conservative media, and vice-versa with liberals. Ironically, I find myself being best explained by The Daily Show (link).

Looking online, I found some pretty intense articles on media bias; not many of which were friendly toward journalists. The first paragraph of this blog from Jim McFarlane; "It's becoming ridiculous how far you can get in life without having to think for yourself. Of course, we have the media to thank for this. The manipulative, manipulated media. That horrible liberal media. That dastardly conservative bias. Pick your poison, and either one is dead-on," he is not really a fan of bias (link). Unbiased media is more of a black sheep than I ever would've guessed; no one has anything good to say about it. In an ARS Technica open forum, the user Digitali says, "You won't find unbiased media, mainstream or otherwise.The best you can do is get stories from both (or more) biased sides and form your own opinion," and that, my friends, is about as optimistic as it gets for unbiased media (link). Take a gander at the full articles if you feel so inspired.