The news source I chose to focus on is CBS News as it the news source I see most on TV. It is left skewed which does not surprise me as that is the political view of my parents and thus why it was most often played around our household. The bias rating is -3.75 and a reliability rating of 46.95, meaning it is a relatively unbiased news source. I don’t see news so much anymore, but growing up, which is primarily when it was being played, I never would have thought to question if it was biased or not, so the rating of the source don’t really come as a shock to me.
Month: October 2021 (page 2 of 3)
Growing up I hated watching news. My dad always pulls it up whenever my favorite TV show comes up so I had a rough patch for it. But if I ever had to choose like now ,for college, I would pick CNN. That was the only one I would slightly tolerate, I kind of had fun watching it but I would never say this out loud in front of my dad. The way they presented their news encouraged me to actually try and listen about things happening all around the world. I liked the way they outlined their presentation always made me want to listen more. I also admired the interviews they made traveling across the world. So I did some research and it indicated that CNN was mostly analysis or mix of fact reporting and analysis. The overall reliability was stated to be 46.8. And it skews left slightly. What I found surprising was that it had an opinionated content ,to be honest I didn’t expect that but coming to think about it every news which presented political affairs at some point will have an opinionated content since they had to choose a side to view it in their own perspective.
I decided to investigate Reuters as I used to use it often for my current event assignments back in high school. Reuters has a bias rating of -1.57, meaning that it has little bias to the left, but still a very solid pick for an unbiased source. Reuters also has a reliability rating of 48.85 that informs us that they offer almost only facts on their platform. This does not surprise me as I have always viewed Reuters as a solid choice to find out information while not having to worry about any misinformation through any bias. The slight lean towards the left may raise concerns for some viewers, but the platform is nearly completely unbiased overall. You always have to go in with a mindset that what you may be presented with may not always fit what you want and you should take it in with an open mind.
I would pick The New York Times to investigate as it is a top-notch newspaper and also the one I read most. The Media Bias Website says that The New York Times is one of the top reliable sources for news consumption, which is ovbvious, and leans a little bit to the left (I am not sure about this). I mean I am not so surprised to know that as, honestly, I do not know much about politics and I was not so aware of whether the left and right partisans matter or not when reading newspapers. And this is just a small incline to the left so I did not feel clear about the difference. This enlightenment is kind of interesting and by knowing this in the future I will pay more attention to any source I consume.
I chose CBS because I view it on TV often. The branch I am familiar with is Philadelphia, and I usually view it for live updates on the area. While I read a variety of different news pages, CBS is the main one I watch. The bias is -3.95. The reliability is 46.95. This means that it is complex analysis and facts reporting, and mainly unbiased with a very slight left lean. This doesn’t surprise me because these are the reasons I like CBS. They are largely unbiased while simultaneously providing a blend of analysis and facts that make the news interesting. I also like the personalities of the newscasters on CBS Philadelphia. They give a good presentation that keeps the viewers watching.
The “news” source I chose for this post was InfoWars. The main reason being that I find Alex Jones to be really funny and entertaining. Alex Jones is a controversial political commentator who got canceled. Once he was banned off youtube he turned to make his own news site InfoWars. The media bias chart plots InfoWars as hyper-partisan right with inaccurate/fabricated information. This does not surprise me as Alex Jones was canceled for being a parkland “denier”. Alex Jones is an entertainer who specializes in politics. His “news” is more captivating than it is factual.
I chose to investigate the New York times as my news source. Based on the graphic, The New York Times is slightly to the left. I expected this result I believe that the New York Times is considered a reliable news source. The bias is only skewed slightly to the left, meaning that there is not much bias detected. I think that this is what makes for a reliable news source; if a source appeals too much to the left or the right, the other side will not acknowledge it at a credible source. It will only further enforce radical views of either side. Therefore, it is important for a news source to remain free from bias if it wants to be taken seriously.
One Source of News I frequent is the Wall Street Journal. This is because I am interested in finance, and this is a great way to get exposed to a lot of the language of business and markets while also keeping up with current events. The WSJ has a reliability rating of 46.06 which means it is relatively reliable with some opinions and analysis of those facts. The basis rating is a modest 4.89 skewed right. Meaning the commentary on the reported facts tends to be just right of center. All in all, I think this source is reliable. Compared to many other mainstream sources, it is much more reliable and less biased when looking at both medium’s respective ratings for reliability and bias.
For my media bias analysis, I decided to choose Forbes. During my selection process, I wanted to choose a source that would be both well-known/familiar to me and also something I had cited in the past. I’ve used Forbes multiple times but always questioned its reliability/credibility as well as its political bias. In my research, I discovered that Forbes has a reliability rating of 43.74 (strong and in the green zone) and tends to have pretty balanced media bias overall with a rating of -3.04 (leaning slightly left). I would say that this data does not really surprise me as any time I’ve used an article from Forbes in the past, I’ve never noticed any obvious political bias, and seeing as the audience size of the source is approximately 57 million, it’s clear that this is a very credible/reliable source to cite. I think that in the future I’ll definitely feel secure/reliable about using Forbes, and I’m glad that the research I did was able to show positive results.
I chose to investigate The Wall Street Journal because the WSJ is more of a business-based newspaper which I am interested in. According to the media bias chart, the Wall Street Journal has a bias score of 4.89. This means that the Wall Street Journal is more right leaning than left leaning. I was not surprised by this number because the reports from the Wall Street Journal always seem to be more in favor for republicans than democrats. The Wall Street Journal has a score of 46.06 for reliability. This score means that the Wall Street Journal is mainly a mix of fact reporting as well as an analysis of the facts. This score seems very appropriate because the Wall Street Journal does not simply report the facts, it also provides a commentary on the facts. Even though the Wall Street Journal is more right leaning, I still do think it is a pretty good source, you just have to keep in that bias may play a role in what you are reading.