Tag Archives: bias

Broadcast News: November 24, 2023

The main story on NBC Nightly News concerned the first hostage release in the Israel/Gaza war. About 10 minutes into the broadcast, they ran three stories, all involving heightened mall security on Black Friday. The first story was about a pro-Palestine protest in LA that briefly blocked traffic to a mall; the second was on a bomb threat in New Jersey; the third was on the continuing upsurge of “smash and grab” robberies nationwide. But the headline banner read “Black Friday Protests”, while all three images that ran over it were of the completely unrelated robberies. Viewers were left with the impression that the anti-war protesters were wearing black like Antifa, concealing their identities with masks, smashing store windows, and grabbing the goods.

I don’t think the network deliberately conflated the protest and robbery stories. Lester Holt and his staff were merely lazy, and possibly still digesting their Thanksgiving turkey. Whatever their excuse might be, their carelessness revealed their unconscious bias. They painted with the blackest of brushes protests that were clearly motivated by moral outrage. Anyone who has attended big political demonstrations knows that there are usually a few people on the fringe who are looking for a fight, or for a distraction to cover some criminal activity. Often, the major media will cover the few bad actors and ignore thousands of peaceful demonstrators. 

In this case, a news venue used images of criminal activity that it knew had no connection with a protest to smear that protest, and by extension, all pro-Palestinian protests. Millions of people watched this piece of fake news. And it wasn’t even on Fox.

Broadcast News: April 25, 2023

It’s so weird how the major networks frame the news. A case in point is Nora O’Donnell’s CBS evening show on the day Biden announced his run for re-election.

The only issue CBS raised was Biden’s age. An interviewer on the street asked two young women for their opinion. One was white, one black – perhaps the network’s idea of balanced perspectives. Both thought Biden was too old to run. 

Trump appeared twice in this broadcast. The first time was a clip of him declaring that “you could take the five worst presidents in American history and they would not have done the damage Joe Biden has done.” One doubts he could name those five presidents, but never mind. What damage, what evidence? CBS does not comment or counter. Trump’s second mention was for the opening of his trial for sexual assault and defamation..

CBS followed the “worst presidents” quote with a finding from its recent opinion poll, in which they asked people “Are things in the US out of control?” and 72% answered yes. What did they mean? Mass shootings, climate change, the debt ceiling? A ridiculously vague question, no explanation of the response, and the blame for whatever problems respondents had in mind is tacitly placed on Biden. 

Later on in the same broadcast, O’Donnell ran a piece about Harry Belafonte, who died that day at the age of 96. The piece said he was an activist for social justice “during the civil rights movement,” even though he was an activist his whole long life. Clips proved he was still vibrant, articulate, passionate, and compelling in his early 90s. 

So does advanced age mean a person is unable to fulfill important public functions? According to this broadcast, the answer is yes in Biden’s case, but no in Belafonte’s. 

If the networks hadn’t given Trump $3 billion worth of free publicity during the 2016 campaign because he was so entertaining, he might never have become president, never encouraged the resurgence of white supremacy, never roused his followers to support police violence or misogyny. Maybe now things in this country would not feel so out of control. 

This broadcast also covered Texas storms with “hail bigger than ping pong balls” and more floods in Florida, and somehow failed to mention climate change. 

CBS newscasts are very similar to those of ABC and NBC. All three networks usually cover the same stories, in the same way, and often in the same order. They rarely mention other countries, unless American citizens are involved. They don’t use graphs or charts even when using them would be the most effective way to communicate what’s going on, as with COVID or climate change. And if they lean left, as common wisdom tends to suppose, they sure have a funny way of showing it.