Media should not always be taken at face value

Sunday, August 11, 1996

By Auren Hoffman

People are too quick to accept someone’s word as truth in
today’s world of moving electrons and instant media. Every
television station, newspaper, magazine and radio show is biased.
There is no such thing as totally objective, nonpartisan reporting.
Media should be biased ­ but they should be forthcoming about
the bias.

CNN news reports always defend Clinton at any cost while the
Wall Street Journal can always find the up-side to a Republican
folly. The Washington Times and the Washington Post usually report
on the same story in two very different ways. But the average
reader, watcher, or listener does not understand this. The average
Joe needs to be taught that what the media reports, and how it
reports, reflects upon the personal views of those who are doing
the reporting (or those who own the media).

Listening to news reports is almost like overhearing a
locker-room conversation about Sally sleeping with the football
team and Jim killing his math teacher. There is probably some truth
to the report but rarely is it fully accurate. Sally probably slept
with only one football player and Jim probably said that he wanted
to beat up his math teacher. Every time a story is reported it gets
transformed. News reports are no different from the game
"telephone" that you used to play when you were a kid.

I discussed this topic with a friend of mine who said, "I don’t
believe news stories immediately when I hear them, but, I tend to
believe it after hearing the same story from multiple sources." My
friend has the wrong attitude. How many times have you heard that
the Republicans are cutting Medicare? At least 1,000. But the GOP
proposed to increase Medicare ­ they just want a smaller
increase than the Democrats. Government officials, sports figures
and business people should always be innocent until proven guilty.
Remember, Sally’s rumor probably got around her high school
too.

Politicians, of course, distort the truth. Republicans,
Democrats, Reformers, Libertarians, Greens, Independents,
Communists, Fascists and others angle what they say. But
politicians are not at fault for a gullible society. We must
understand that when an official says something, even a
"non-partisan" official, he or she is usually trying to achieve an
end goal with the statement. Thus, people have an agenda. That
should not be shocking, it should be comforting. People should work
to achieve an end goal. The media, however, should not portray
these opinions by others as truth.

All said, however, you have to believe in something ­
though you can’t take a report only at face value. I never believe
"facts" until I complete the proper research and take some time to
determine my opinion.

With information overload coming at our population, many of us
choose a medium to filter the information for us. This is very
dangerous. We should take advantage of the availability of news
from different sources and determine our opinions after thought and
rational decision-making.

An editor of mine asked: "Beyond simply checking facts for
yourselves, what can be done to insure that the American public is
made aware of election-time truth?" The best way to ensure you make
an informed choice is to absorb as much information as possible
from as many sources as possible. After making decisions based on
all the information for some time, you may find others you tend to
agree with you. Because you might not always have time to read
everything available, it is certainly OK to rely on people with
similar views to help you make decisions (like a Senator’s staff).
However, the above question asks how you can be aware of the
"truth." I suggest you use your best judgment and resist
information from being spoon fed to you.

Auren Hoffman is a senior majoring in Industrial Engineering and
Operations Research at UC Berkeley. He is the executive editor of
the Internet Herald (http://server.berkeley.edu/herald).