Media Bias: State-Controlled or Unintentional? Essay Example

The integrity of journalists to remain objective and unbiased is routinely called into question.  The job of the press is to report the facts, and not to color the information with personal opinion.  Many would agree with Shudson that journalists are generally professional, and any bias is unintentional.  However, there are a number individuals, such as Todd Gitlin, who would disagree.  Gitlin states that the bias in the media has direct authority over the news the public receives.  He illustrates this point by describing how the New Left in the 1960’s was at first supported, and subsequently abandoned by the media.

According to Shudson, reporters are more likely to report outrageous events, as opposed to mundane news.  If there is a bias in journalism, it is unintentional, and more likely due to the fact that journalists are human.  Journalists are more likely to investigate issues that concern people of a similar nature.  “A female reporter is more likely than a male reporter, other things being equal, to see rape as a newsworthy issue. An African American reporter is more likely than a white reporter, other things being equal, to find issues in the African American community newsworthy.” (40)

Gitlin argues that the reason the journalists report biased news is due to the corruption of a higher authority.  The “hegemony” refers to that the media is controlled by the government.  Gitlin uses the New Left’s rise and fall from the media’s grace in the 1960’s and 1970’s to illustrate his point.  In the 1960’s, a counterculture movement occurred which embraced social reform and political activism.  The momentum that the New Left achieved made President Johnson concerned; a large part of this hostility was due to the disagreement of the Vietnam War.  Between 1965-1969, the media became sympathetic to the New Left.  However, the conservative Nixon administration made sure that the media forgot about the New Left and labeled them as unruly troublemakers.

The rise and fall of the New Left as a result of media coverage could be dismissed as a conspiracy theory if this was an isolated incident.  However, the media has been repeatedly guilty of “yellow journalism” in the past and it is difficult to not see Gitlin’s perspective.  But it is understandable to want to believe Shudson, because if Gitlin is correct, it is not journalists who are not to be trusted; it is our government.