You Can Produce Biased News Without Lying: A Small Incident on a Television Program

An online creator I have been watching frequently recently shared a behind-the-scenes story about appearing on a television program.

The program covered the U.S. midterm elections and showed a prerecorded segment filmed on location.

Its message was that support for President Trump was declining and that the Republican Party was struggling.

After watching the segment, the creator made one comment in the studio.

“Isn’t this biased reporting?”

Apparently, the host was not pleased.

The host had probably expected the guests to comment on the segment and then allow the program to proceed as planned.

Instead of offering an opinion about the election results, however, the creator criticized the way the program itself had been made.

What is more, he used the phrase “biased reporting,” a particularly painful accusation for a television network to hear.

According to the creator, the host became visibly irritated.

A guest had directly attacked the segment the program had prepared. From the host’s perspective, it must have felt as though someone had suddenly interrupted the carefully managed show to complain about it.

Still, there is something rather interesting about a news program becoming irritated when someone points out possible bias.

The people who assumed they were in the position of criticizing others suddenly found themselves being criticized.

Is It Not Biased If Nothing Is False?

The election results presented by the program and the critical comments about Trump were not necessarily false.

That was not the problem.

Some Americans are disappointed with Trump, while others remain enthusiastic supporters.

According to the creator, however, the program showed only critical opinions and omitted the perspective of his supporters.

In other words, even when each individual piece of information is factual, the selection and arrangement of those facts can dramatically change the impression viewers receive.

You can produce biased reporting without telling a single lie.

For example, imagine interviewing 10 people who criticize a politician and broadcasting only those 10 interviews.

Every statement is genuine. Nothing has been fabricated.

But viewers may conclude that the politician has no supporters at all.

Gather only supporters instead, and you can produce a program with exactly the opposite message.

Both programs are reporting facts.

How convenient.

He Revealed the Story Before the Recorded Program Aired

What makes the situation even more interesting is that the program was recorded rather than broadcast live.

The creator himself said that his comment might be cut.

But then he revealed the behind-the-scenes story on YouTube before the program aired.

Naturally, viewers would now want to see that particular scene.

If it were removed from the broadcast, people would suspect that the network had cut it because the criticism was inconvenient.

On the other hand, if it aired unchanged, the entire country would see a guest accuse the program of biased reporting from within the program itself.

Either way, people would talk about it.

As a result, the creator had even promoted the television program for them.

The network must have had mixed feelings about whether to be grateful or annoyed.

Reporting Facts and Presenting the Whole Picture Are Different Things

People often say, “There is only one set of facts, but as many truths as there are people.”

This story, however, reveals a more specific problem.

Accurately reporting facts does not necessarily mean presenting the whole picture.

Which facts are included, and which are left out?

That choice alone determines the direction of the coverage.

The difficult part is that viewers cannot see the facts that were never broadcast.

To some extent, they can verify whether the information shown on the screen is accurate.

But when information is omitted from the beginning, they may not even realize it exists.

This is not limited to political reporting.

The same thing can happen with corporate scandals, issues involving foreign residents, and social incidents.

Gather 10 facts and present only the three that support your preferred message. To people who do not know the other seven, those three will look like the entire world.

That is why, when watching the news, we need to ask not only, “Is this true?” but also, “What has not been shown?”

Then again, regarding the bias this creator identified, I heard only his account. I did not personally review the entire television broadcast.

In other words, the information I am receiving has also been selected and framed from the creator’s perspective.

If I watch a video criticizing a television network’s bias and unquestioningly accept only that video’s perspective, I have fallen perfectly into the same trap.

Detecting biased reporting is, it turns out, quite a troublesome task.