Here’s a link to a video of Valerie Jarrett stating the White Houses stance against bias in the news media. I’m the first to agree that Fox News is biased. However, they’re extreme enough that I would say it’s a pretty obvious call. However, waging war on bias in the entire landscape of new media is a very tricky thing. How do we really define bias and objectivity? And who gets to decide which definition will be used? Though it was very satisfying to see the White House actually fighting back against Fox News, I’m starting think they’ve gotten themselves into a more complicated war than they anticipated (not that this is something that America has never encountered…). Fighting for objectivity means both defining it and regulating it, and the regulating part makes me nervous.
We have free speech and free press, and both are a celebrated rights our country that should not be taken for granted. I think that news organizations should not be able to disseminate hateful or slanderous statements, and that they should live up to their slogans (I sometime wonder if Fox News meant “fair & balanced” to be ironic…). Honestly, at this point I think news should just admit bias instead of trying to feign objectivity. As human beings, our perspective has a pesky habit of seeping into the way we see things and report them. Rather than expecting news to be above the limits of humanity, it should strive for fairness but admit when objectivity is not possible.
2 years ago