Page Two: Along the Bias

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend!"

– Jimmy Stewart in John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

"People take pictures of the summer

Just in case someone thought they had missed it

And to prove that it really existed." – Ray Davies, "People Take Pictures of Each Other"

Currently, there is a somewhat lively debate going on in our online forums (austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Forums/). The argument centers around last week's story on the death of journalist Brad Will, written by John Ross. At issue, and a popular topic among many, is whether there are any unbiased reporters – reporters who offer objective rather than opinionated journalism – left.

One of the forum's most interesting regulars lays out these concerns as they are most commonly expressed:

"The article on Brad Will and the accompanying article titled 'Killing the Messengers' highlights what many of us members of the great unwashed have known for a long time – we have no journalists. When a reporter ventures to Mexico to report on the 'fight for social justice,' that reporter is not approaching the subject with an unbiased mind. That reporter is approaching the subject with their mind already made up. When the reporter goes to the assignment with that attitude, they are not an unbiased 'journalist.' They are, in fact, an editorialist or propagandist or merely a 'reporter' with all the seediness we usually associate with that term."

I would argue that this perpetuates two widely accepted, even reasonable, notions/ideas; that they are both completely fantastic fictions muddies the waters.

There is the widely accepted and championed assumption that a really good reporter – the best kind of reporter – would be one who approaches a subject "with an unbiased mind."

There is a two-pronged rebuttal to this position, the first of which this column will address.

There really is nothing that might be called "unbiased reporting." From the simplest two-car collision to the far more complicated intricacies of government, business, and war, the reporter is going to be shaping the story, whether by consciously melding his or her reporting to his or her beliefs or doing it more unconsciously. After a two-car collision, a reporter might talk to each driver for three to five minutes, with maybe one sentence from each ending up in the story. By choosing which quotes to use, the reporter influences the story.

It is a rare story, even if glowingly positive, that people are happy with as written. Instead, it is far more common to find that there are always major and minor points that the subject(s) of the story believe are misrepresented. If it is a negative piece, forget it: Nothing will be regarded as correct. It is very common to hear people complain of being misquoted or of the quote being taken out of context. Most of the time this is because people are shocked when they see what they've said printed in black and white. Sometimes, of course, their objections are valid, but more often than not, the problem is that they regret what they have said and would have written the story very differently. Only rarely does a story, even if fairly inconsequential, fail to leave at least someone feeling it is biased or misrepresentative.

Think about this for a couple of minutes – if one reporter is basically anti-abortion because he or she is deeply religious, another reporter might be a more casual believer, another also might be passionate but of a different faith, and so on. Each will approach many stories from a completely different place, with each one's sense of what is fair and objective being different.

Take something much more complex, like a fatal incident in Iraq. The story as reported by an "unbiased" newsman would still be biased. This is because an American journalist is going to have a very different take on what happened than will a French or Mexican journalist; moreover, his or her opinion will be different from the perceptions of an American veteran soldier, newly arrived American troops, al Qaeda fighters, Iraqi resistance members, and regular citizens. Within each of these very different groups, there still won't be a single, monolithic take but a wide range of views as to what happened.

Now, I realize some of our readers believe that there is definable and knowable good and evil. Similarly, some believe that there is a concrete truth to any incident – that there is an objective, absolute reality to what happened, a clear-cut sequence of events, knowable good and bad guys. (Oddly enough, if one peruses these folks' reasoning with them, it turns out they know exactly what that good and evil is and they can easily discern the truth.) This ridiculous attitude, which basically argues that individuals are the centers of their own universes, plagues the Bush administration. The invasion of Iraq, a profoundly stupid move, flowed from it. Even if you want to join the lunatic fringe that believes we are engaged in a war with Islamic fundamentalists for the future of civilization, this was a dumb move. If you believe we are fighting them over there so we don't have to be fighting them here, I have to wonder why you are reading this column. Not because my opinions are so different but because, with that attitude, why bother to read at all? Regardless of your take on the situation, we are fighting terrorists and terrorist sympathizers, not specific nation-states. One country can subdue another country to the point where it is no longer a threat. But terrorists are individuals, and cells committed separate, violent acts; there is no front to assault. Instead, the war is the best recruiting poster for the next couple of generations of terrorists that anybody could have conceived; someone trying to do just that would have been hard-pressed to come up with a better strategy.

Each of us, under the best of circumstances, often views the same event differently. Consider Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon. A masterpiece, the film tells the story of a rape/murder from the different viewpoints of four people who were involved. Take this not as a statement that there are four sides to every story but as a metaphor suggesting there are many sides to any story.

On top of all this, a reporter covering a complex action such as the war in Iraq, for example, needs an understanding of religion, politics, history, and ethnic characteristics and differences to offer a so-called "objective" report on the simplest incident. Now, would you either really want or honestly expect someone with that depth of knowledge not to have an opinion? If he or she disguises or subjugates those opinions, the story will still be tilted; it will just be harder for a reader to figure out what the bias is.

In another post, the forum writer goes on:

"I've never bought into the Fox 'fair and balanced' crap, either. But under the analysis I'm reading in these posts, what they are doing must be okay. It isn't really whether a reporter is blatantly biased and reports the 'facts' in that manner; it's whether you agree with that reporter's politics. Yes, I'm aware that the hardcore right wing would turn the U.S. into a feudal state. My only point is that no person can approach any subject for the sole purpose of essentially promoting one political point of view and then transform themselves into an unbiased 'messenger' just by sticking a press card in their hat. It's wrong when the right does it, and it's just as wrong when done by the left."

Of course, there is nothing even slightly fair or balanced about Fox's reporting; neither I nor the forum writer is arguing to the contrary. The advent of Fox News made it crystal clear that people who were accusing the mainstream press of a liberal bias were opposed only to the "liberal" in that statement. They didn't want news they didn't want to hear, whether it was being "objectively" reported or not. In fact, it has turned out that what they really want is bias, not reporting – only they demand that the bias complement and not challenge their beliefs. They sure don't want news, especially if it tries in any way to be fair.

The post continues:

"I'm also aware that no reporter can be completely unbiased. But if they are going to do the job, they have to at least try to be. But this is exactly what Fox claims to do. Rather than admit to their obvious and overwhelming bias, they pretend to be fair and balanced, which is a joke."

So ignore Fox's ridiculous claims. The reality is that the news they present in many ways is easily accessible exactly because their bias is so obvious. On Fox, ideology trumps reality, opinion is more important than what happened, and fitting in with the station's obvious political posture is the mandate. I'm not saying that by any measure this is good reporting, but you know exactly from where they are coming.

"Fair" is possible: You present both sides as best you can but make your prejudices clear. "Balanced" is a ridiculous goal in reporting. "Balanced" means presenting both sides of an issue equally. Many times this serves spin and obfuscation well but the reader not at all.

Friends once stayed at the condo of a PR person for a developer. She was heading out of town, but before she left she told them how she loved TV news because, in its determination to treat both sides equally, it could be spun. She had no affection for this paper.

I feel as though I'm setting up the writer of the posts quoted above as a straw man. I apologize for that – deeply and in all sincerity. I don't disagree with the gist of what he is saying, but I think there is a tendency to simplify the problems, difficulties, and complexities of journalism.

Over the years, I've read hundreds of pieces, coming from all different viewpoints, that had me throwing the publication against the wall because of the blatant intellectual dishonesty. None of this is easy. I have as much contempt for leftist reporters who come knowing the "truth" of the story beforehand as I do for right-wingers who do the same. This is not a disingenuous ploy in order to appear to be "fair." True-believing leftists feel their truth is holy. Too many of them deny their prejudices and disguise their beliefs. As completely dishonest and manipulative as right-wing pundits can be, left-wing ones manage to absolutely keep pace with them.

I totally agree that when a reporter has deeply held beliefs and clearly pronounced ideas on a subject but presents his or her reporting as "objective" or as "solid truth," it is deeply dishonest. Obviously, they are editorializing more than they are reporting.

Frequently in letters and posts, the writer recommends a documentary (or documentaries), a book (or books), or a website(s) as being unusually good or remarkably reasonable. Invariably this means that, whatever the medium, the work reinforces his or her own point of view. Most issues are way too complicated to be presented simply, but it is much easier to represent, lay out clearly, and factually present one point of view. Although that can be done concisely, the account is almost invariably incomplete and thus inaccurate. There are those who wish that human beings, their lives, and histories were so simple as to be barely two-dimensional. These folks champion "common sense" as a way to solve any problem and detest academics and their ilk for obscuring the sweet, easily discernible "truth" of any issue. Believe that if you will.

Here at the Chronicle, we try to be fair, to present both sides or positions on an issue. Ultimately, though, we offer advocacy journalism. At our very best, we explain the topic fairly, but the writer also makes his or her position perfectly obvious; in the process of doing that, biases should become clear. Whether we succeed or not is very much your call more than ours.

Part II at some point in the future.