News junkies like me often keep a close eye on the media during newsworthy events like Tuesday’s U.S.
American media is not as “objective” as some might think.
Last Tuesday afternoon, I tuned into CNN, mostly because they offer 24-7 news coverage and none of the other networks had begun their election coverage yet. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll tell you right off the bat that I wanted Barach Obama to be elected president. So I was interested in hearing that ‘all Obama or Romney has to do is carry the battle ground states like Ohio
When I tuned into CBS a little later in the evening, I began to notice a distinction between that network and CNN.
They were predicting, interpreting and reporting the results differently. The CBS anchor would say, ‘if Romney takes Ohio
When I switched back to CNN, I noticed they were “interpreting” things the same way, but they seemed to be favouring the president. I was a little less annoyed by the Obama-favouring because of course that was what I wanted to hear.
However it got me thinking about the relationship between ethics and journalism and American versus American media.
As journalism students, we’re taught that complete objectivity is impossible. We’re also taught to be as fair and balanced in our reporting as possible and to always be conscious that we’re human beings with our own opinions and biases.
Perhaps the same kinds of overt bias I saw on U.S. Election Day exist in Canadian media at election time or just in general. But why haven’t I noticed these kinds of differences in Canadian news reporting? Have I not been paying enough attention? Or is American media actually that, for lack of a better phrase, corrupt?
Your comments are most welcome.
I think in matters like these, there is a huge grey area in terms of "objectivity". On one hand, you can say that CBS wanted Romney to win. On the other hand, this was a close race, and when the race was close, people began to discuss the possibility of a Romney presidency. When the possibility of a new presidency arises, it is a big deal in the eyes of the media. It would make sense, then, for CBS to focus on Romney. There's a chance, too, that CNN focused on Romney's chances when you switched the channel.
ReplyDeleteEvery television network is always trying to cover a particular news item from its own angle, and because TV networks choose different angles to work with, it can be very easy to accuse them of not being fair and balanced.