# Do Americans really perceive the American press to be biased? To be trusted? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 1, 2015, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-americans-really-perceive-the-american-press-to-be-biased-to-be-trusted/739145 "2015-12-01T21:03:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2015, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-americans-really-perceive-the-american-press-to-be-biased-to-be-trusted/739145/41 "2015-12-03T11:00:23Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Agreed, and frankly the media, define that how you will, makes little to no attempt to conceal their bias. Except for one network that declares it is “Fair and Balanced” about a thousand times a day. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2015, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-americans-really-perceive-the-american-press-to-be-biased-to-be-trusted/739145/42 "2015-12-03T12:07:51Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > You raise an interesting thought. I find myself getting more and more of my national news from English newspapers. Which raises a question of its own – are they less biased because of a lack of political partisanship or more biased because of their own political leanings which are generally leftward of ours? Interesting perspective. Internally our press is viewed as mainly right wing (The Sun, Times, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Express). Only the Guardian and the Mirror stick to their left leaning roots. And all the papers are very obviously politically biased. Our broadcast news is far less so, mainly because broadcasters are regulated and news reports required to show impartiality. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2015, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-americans-really-perceive-the-american-press-to-be-biased-to-be-trusted/739145/43 "2015-12-03T13:42:38Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Interesting perspective. Internally our press is viewed as mainly right wing (The Sun, Times, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Express). Only the Guardian and the Mirror stick to their left leaning roots. And all the papers are very obviously politically biased. > > Our broadcast news is far less so, mainly because broadcasters are regulated and news reports required to show impartiality. I’ve glommed on mostly to the Guardian and just try to ignore the most blatantly pinko stuff. I like their slant against monied and entrenched power but sometimes they fall into the “bossiness” mode that conservatives always rail about. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2015, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-americans-really-perceive-the-american-press-to-be-biased-to-be-trusted/739145/44 "2015-12-03T14:34:31Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > People on the right watch a channel which is biased, and which says that everyone else is biased, so it is not surprising that they think so. And in this sense they are correct. > But the media is too big for there to be an answer. Is MSNBC biased also? Of course it is - that’s the point. CNN? Stupid maybe, but not that biased. I’d argue that CNN’s actual content isn’t particularly biased, but their choices of what and where they place said content in the newscast and the web site definitely is. I can think of multiple times when there was something of moderate to high interest to people in the US going on, and CNN’s US edition website had front-page articles about sex trafficking in Latin America or about African orphans listed higher and in larger type. That sort of thing shows a political slant, even if the actual content of the articles themselves is pretty even-handed. With the exception of MSNBC and Fox News, I tend to think that sort of back-door editorializing is most of what I see as bias. Few stations really want to own up to being identified as blatantly slanted one way or the other. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2015, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-americans-really-perceive-the-american-press-to-be-biased-to-be-trusted/739145/45 "2015-12-03T15:19:59Z")
So here’s the opening paragraph from an AP article in today’s Chicago Trib. Is it biased, or not? > [@](#): > > Talks on a massive, government-wide spending bill hit a snag Wednesday as Republicans pressed demands to block new power plant rules, weaken financial services regulations and make it more difficult for Syrian and Iraqi refugees to enter the US. Which parts - if any - are biased, and in what direction? If you feel it is biased, how would you present those facts in an unbiased manner? My wife and I are quite liberal, and lifelong residents of the Chicago area. The Trib’s editorial stance is not exactly known as a bastion of liberal sentiment. I thought the tone of this paragraph could be viewed as somewhat biased against the Republican agenda. Of course, since I tend to consider much of that agenda unreasonable, IMO the quoted paragraph probably accurately reports the facts. My wife OTOH, thought it was a fair - possibly liberal phrasing, based on what she expected from what we’ve experienced (and opined) to be a conservative leaning publication. Note: this occurred in the news section, not the editorial page. So one likely may need to distinguish between those. But if someone is acting/speaking unreasonably or inappropriately, the media ought not have to distort the actions/words in order to make the reporting appear “neutral”. IMO it can be entirely accurate and fair to print “Hitler was an asshole,” even though his followers might object that that does not reflect their perception. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2015, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-americans-really-perceive-the-american-press-to-be-biased-to-be-trusted/739145/46 "2015-12-03T15:51:20Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > [Salon are reporting](http://www.salon.com/2015/12/01/now_we_know_truthiness_is_a_republican_phenomenon/) that Republicans massively distrust - even disbelieve - the press. Unfortunately Salon themselves are massively liberal / Democrat biased, so, to paraphrase Christine Keeler, “They would say that, wouldn’t they?” Salon is simply reporting a study by the Pew Research Center, which I’ve never heard called biased. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2015, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-americans-really-perceive-the-american-press-to-be-biased-to-be-trusted/739145/47 "2015-12-03T16:52:13Z")
That raises the auxiliary interesting question of: do Americans trust poll results? Especially if they might contradict what they believe to be true? ---
**Author:** ![Snnipe\_70E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2015, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-americans-really-perceive-the-american-press-to-be-biased-to-be-trusted/739145/48 "2015-12-03T17:08:21Z")
Biased you bet! In the 50’s my dad got into an argument with editor of a newspaper because the story that he was involved in and the truth were two different things. Dad took the minutes of the board meeting into the editor to show him what was truly discussed verses what the paper had written. After reading the minutes the editor admitted that the newspaper article got everything wrong. Then he made the statement “Well if we printed the truth it would be boring and would not sell papers. We print what sells papers and that is what is important.” In the 70’s I was walking a union picket line. Newspapers and TV news stories were normally anti union. The Stationary Engineers in SF were making 24% per hour than in San Jose. But the cost of living in both cities were within a few points of each other. We were asking for 14% increase over the live of the contract, 3 years. Almost every newspaper or TV news department reported that the strikers were asking for a 14% increase each year for 3 years. In California during the prop 8 gay rights issue, NBC channel 11 would spend 20 minutes of a 1/2 hour news cycle with different stories in favor of prop 8 while the other stations in the area would only spend about3 to 8 minutes on the story and present both sides, though more on the pro. The last presidential election. The Democratic convention got more coverage than the Republican. I believe it was the keynote speech was only presented in high lights not the whole speech for the republicans. If you can watch a story about a political event on NBC and then watch the same story on Fox. Same event almost different events by the two networks. On almost any network involving a employee screwing up or an action of a employee against an employer. The employee can and will make full comments. But because the employee’s personal file at work is confidential and a employer can not discuss what is in it they will make a we can not make a comment answer. The news reporter will report it in a way to imply that the employer is hiding, or ashamed of what they have done, like they are wrong for not disclosing what is in a personal file. So yes, THE TRUTH AND WHAT THE PRESS REPORTS ARE OFTEN NOT THE SAME! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-americans-really-perceive-the-american-press-to-be-biased-to-be-trusted/739145.md?page=2)