BBC reporter Rachel Kerr’s talk inspired me to read further into bias in the media, as her presentation made me question; do news broadcasters show bias in their reports?
Unsure of the answer, I decided to investigate.
I found an article containing a poll about the public’s opinion on whether UK news corporations are biased.
The poll found Sky News were heavily biased, a large percentage (shown in dark blue below) of the UK public believed Sky reported with a pro-conservative angle, whilst the BBC and Channel 4 were found to be fairly neutral.
However, conflicting evidence posted by The Guardian suggested that perhaps the BBC is more biased than we might like to think; their poll produced results suggesting that the BBC is also more left-wing in its reports.
My research led me to the conclusion that surely media is always slightly bias? I searched for information by googling what I wanted to find; I’m sure that if I had searched for conflicting evidence, it would be just as easy to find.
If you watch a film and expect to dislike it, the likelihood is that you won’t enjoy it. If you pre-judge a band or an album, when you listen you aren’t going to enjoy it, simply because you’re already biased against it.
With this in mind, I found a great guide to recognising bias in the media, so that when reading in future I can recognise bias and be careful to not let it influence my own opinion.
BMS3016 2013-2014 