Quote:
Originally Posted by tompe
It can also be that one view is the correct one. And it is not a bias if reporting is reporting that correct view.
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Of course it is!
That is exactly what bias is: "I know this to be a holy truth so I need not offer an alternative view or explanation." Which turns news reports into propaganda.
Bias is about how the "news" are presented.
Op-ed pieces don't need to meet journalistic standards of comprehensiveness and fairness because by definition they are expected to be biased but news reporting is *supposed* to be factual. (Yeah, right!
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More realistically: news reporting strives to minimize reporter bias to earn credibility for the report and the institution and *not* make the critical reader wonder what's in it for the reporter or his masters or worse yet, *understand* what their vested interest is.
Short-circuiting the process and presenting one-sided, slanted reports--barely disguised op-ed pieces--undercuts the credibility of the reporter and the organization. Now, reporters and editors can be (and are) ditched but damage to the organization is never fully repaired.
Which is why Bezos explicitly told the staff of the Washington Post *not* to slant reports to protect Amazon, as quoted above. He spent a half billion of his personal funds to prop up the paper, not to turn it into an extension of Amazon PR. (For that he would have used corporate funds.)
Credibility, once lost, never really comes back. Once exposed for bias or plagiarism or making up stories, the organization will forever be under a shadow, long after the great and holy cause of the day is gone and forgotten.