Thursday 18 October 2012

Media bais

Hi.
This week's post is a little different than the normal kind of post I make here but then that's not so untypical of me as I can be a bit random.
Anyways, this is the first post going out mainly for two circles at a social networking site one of which kindly offered  to have me, ironic really as I've said a few times the people who wanted me at that site seldom use it and I've ended up having interchanges with people I never encountered before around MLP, anime and what we call loosely gender politics among many things.
Media coverage is something that's always interested me right from high school where because of timetabling I missed taking Media Studies lessons although our Economics lecturer talked a lot about often in the context of social economics and associated poltical activity of the day.
Following on from a  post, I feel there are class based biases around what stories newspapers cover and the angle they portray them in.
For instance one well known UK newspaper  seldom reports events affecting Britain's black community outside of the context of immigration abuse or criminality and had for a period ignored major stories of crime against black people but suddenly shifted a gear in campaigning for justice in the Steven Laurence case.
That was very commendable but the presentation was more one of worthy of support as 'black young man and his family made good' -fellow 'middle class' solid types wronged rather than the injustices of the initial inquiry and how the racial biases of the investigating force hampered the search for justice.Injustice itself should be worth of reporting and campaigning against.
In the ongoing reporting of messing people too it's often the case those seen to be of that that stereotype 'worth solid middle class' who  were wronged often with reference to abilities rather than the many ordinary people, often young people who just seem to vanish and they become the focus of campaigns.
Since 9/11, if you were to read some newspapers the only reference to Muslims is in the context of terror plots or mistreatment of women and minors that sure should be reported and acted upon but ignores the lives of many peaceful followers of that religion and what they contribute to our society.
Do you think our media is biased?

1 comment:

mittfh said...

"Is our media biased?"

Is the pope Catholic? :)

The Daily Mail (often nicknamed Daily Fail or Daily Wail) is perhaps the worst offender - if you're an immigrant, unemployed, ill, in the public sector, a supporter of anyone other than the Conservatives or pretty much anyone who's not in their target audience, you're likely to be attacked by them. Oh, and if you're a celebrity and don't match their vision of perfection, their online portal doubles as a celebrity gossip magazine as well.

The Daily Express is trying to join the club (albeit not with as much celeb gossip - it's owned by the same people who publish OK!) - add EU politicians to the mix as well.

The Telegraph's almost as right-wing as those two, while The Sun and The Times are Murdoch papers - 'nuff said.

So that leaves The Mirror as the sole non-right-wing tabloid, with The Guardian, Independent and i (The Indy's baby sister) as the only breath of fresh air among the "quality" papers. of course, they have their own biases, but generally speaking they're biased more against politicians than people.