Transcript News Content: Four Information Biases That Matter

Madison Papple
Peter Organisciak
CMST 4N03
NEWS CONTENT: FOUR INFORMATION
BIASES THAT MATTER
INTRODUCTION

Information Bias: a type of news bias that
favours simplified, surface details over more
complex realities.
4 Biases
Personalization
Dramatization
Fragmentation
Authority-Disorder Bias
PERSONALIZATION

Personalized News - “the journalistic bias that
gives preference to individual actors and
human-interest angles in events over larger
insttitutional, social, and political contexts”
(Bennett, 2004).
PERSONALIZATION CONT.
Downplays the bigger picture, emphasizes key
players
 Creation of the passive audience
 Main Problem: Shallow portrayal of current
events
 How? 1. The Brand Identity 2. Personal Life

Example: Bill Clinton to aid Hillary's campaign
DRAMATIZATION

“News dramas emphasize crisis of continuity, the
present over the past or future, and the
personalities at their center” (Bennett, 2004).
Flashy headlines and shocking photographs
 "Live Action"
 Serious social problems lost in the drama
 Crises

Example: "Tornado cluster kills at least 50 in U.S."
THE BET
2002 - "In a Google search of five keywords or
phrases representing the top five news stories
of 2007, weblogs will rank higher than the New
York Times' Web site."
THE RESULT
 Wikipedia
Why?
wins?!
FRAGMENTATION
the isolation of stories from each other and
from their larger contexts (42)
 individuals over the broader scope
 erases history by making events self-contained
 details are brushed aside or retold through
archetypal frames

AUTHORITY DISORDER
News is preoccupied with order and how is it
challenged
 evening news syndrome: death, mayhem,
political crisis, failures in the system, doubt...
 politicians over policies
 Concentration on authority figures

Example: Huckabee's Happy Spears Is Keeping Her Baby
WHY DOES IT HAPPEN?

Consider these 3 Propositions
1.
2.
3.
Journalists try to simplify complex stories
Journalists try to be (or appear) objective
Journalists must be able to keep stories alive even
when there are no new developments
THE FUTURE: IS THERE HOPE?
Bennett says it doesn’t look good



Why not?
But, what about...
 Civic
Journalism >> Citizen Journalism >> Pro-Am
Journalism
CONCLUSION
To Summarize:
 News
tends to prefer the personalized drama, at
the expense of context
 These information biases naturally follow current
journalistic practices
 To
change the biases, the method needs to be
considered