(Photo: Jon S)
As a writer, I tend to think about media bias from a different perspective than the average media consumer, and also different from academic researchers who try to identify media bias via data analysis, as described in our recent podcast “How Biased Is Your Media?”
I tend to think about subtle but telling things like word choice and sentence structure — what is the journalist emphasizing, or downplaying, and why? — but also an article’s placement, inclusion or exclusion of outside quotes, and choice of headline (which, for the record, is usually written by an editor and not the reporter him/herself).
Above all, I tend to compare articles from different newspapers that are based on the same event. This is to me one of the simplest but most powerful ways to take the pulse of a newspaper’s culture. If, for instance, two newspapers publish articles based on a simple event — a state comptroller’s report about Wall Street bonuses, for instance — one can read a little bit of institutional attitude into the two papers’ resultant articles.
Let’s imagine that the comptroller’s report announces that cumulative bonus pay has fallen 14% from last year. How should that fact be conveyed to readers? Should a reporter imply that any bonus to a banker is still too large, given the devastating damage caused by big banks over the past several years? Or, alternately: is a fall in bonuses a harbinger of future economic pain that will touch everyone? And what kind of words should be used to describe this bonus drop?
Okay, I’ll admit: this scenario isn’t imaginary at all. Consider a pair of articles in today’s N.Y. Times and Wall Street Journal, each reporting New York comptroller Thomas DiNapoli‘s report which shows that bonuses for 2011 are expected to come in 14% below 2010 numbers. Here are the headlines and leads of the two articles:
The first article:
Bonuses Dip on Wall St., but Far Less Than Earnings
It is apparently going to take more than shrinking bank profits to put a big dent in Wall Street bonuses.
The total payout to security industry workers in New York is forecast to drop only 14 percent during this bonus season, according to a report issued on Wednesday by the state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli. By comparison, profits last year plunged 51 percent.
“The securities industry, which is a critical component of the economies of New York City and New York State, faces continued challenges as it works through the fallout from the financial crisis and adjusts to regulatory reforms,” Mr. DiNapoli said in a statement.
The second article:
Wall Street Bonuses Shrink
New York Comptroller Says Pool Dropped 14% in ‘Difficult Year’ for IndustryWall Street cash bonuses for 2011 are expected to have tumbled 14% from a year earlier and will likely hit their lowest level since the financial crisis of 2008, according to a report released by New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
New York securities firms will pay employees $19.7 billion in cash bonuses, down sharply from $22.8 billion in 2010.
A smaller bonus pool is the latest sign of pain for the big banks, which have been culling their ranks and reducing costs since last spring on the European debt crisis, a slowing U.S. economy and lower client trading volumes. It also has big implications for the budgets of New York state and New York City.
I will let you guess which article comes from which newspaper (you can read the entire articles via the links above), and I will let you infer what the language choices say about that paper’s culture. But I will say this: based on what our media-bias podcast taught me, I would expect that any bias that is exhibited by the journalists in question is probably trumped by the bias of the reader. We consume the media we consume in large part because it confirms our preexisting biases, even if we’re sure such biases don’t exist.
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Another thing that I think may be worth noting is that these excerpts were taken from the top of the article, not even below the fold. The articles haven’t even had enough time to explain what the news is before they start making interesting word choices and injecting bias into whats being said. Now, I’ll admit I’m not a professional journalist myself, but I do recall a thing or two about ledes from my introductory journalism courses in college a few years back and these ledes sure do tell two totally different stories.
I buy into the idea that the public likes to “hear stories” rather than just get the facts. I’d agree that the news we choose to consume is largely based on reinforcing preexisting biases.
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Dube:
As your limited time allows, you would be well advised to listen to the BBC. There, IMHO, you will find far more objective opinion about the US, than you will from US newspapers. This is even true when the BBC interviews news-makers from the US.
That’s only my opinion, but the US would never publish or broadcast interviews with the boldness of the BBC’s. I will never forget Judy Swallow’s interview of some tyrannical African dictator: Judy responded to the dictator’s bloviating about caring for the welfare of “his people”…when Judy piped up, “But isn’t that all just a load of CRAP?”
The balls on that lady!
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I’m not British, but shouldn’t that be “The bollocks on that lady!”?
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True, she was born in the UK, but grew up in the United States (Massachusetts).
Maybe she has both!
Bollocks is a term for the anatomical items themselves, or for a statement which is notably untrue (as in: “Mate, you’re talking a load of bollocks”). When a British person praises someone for bravery, they would use “balls”, just like an American.
I’d go one furthur, listen to one biased right leaning, one biased left leaning and one “other” news source (BBC), with an open mind. Was reading an article, about NPR changing it’s handbook. stating they will no longer attempt to give weight to both sides, but will determine the “Truth” and report that, to get rid of bias. And how one determines which side is “truth” is another story.
Reminds me of an old internet story that makes it’s rounds. A girl walking down a city street is attacked by a snarling large dog, a teenage boy runs over grabs it’s collar and forces the dog off of her, and in the process breaks the dogs neck.
A reporter runs up, says I saw the whole thing and will write the story.
By the way are you a Yankees fan or a Mets fan.
The kid answers a Yankees fan.
So the story headline tomorrow is, ” Teenage thug kills beloved neighborhood pet.”
Truth is often in the eye of the beholder.
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The BBC is federally funded so they don’t have to answer to sponsors. In the U.S. it’s all about the ratings and getting eyeballs. I think the U.S. news is much more interesting and entertaining to watch. There just has to be a footnote that says, you need to to be skeptical of media sources the way you would be skeptical of you grandfather who exaggerates his war stories too much. It’s the responsibility of the viewer to understand the biases and intentions of the information presented.
Different audience, different expectation. The New York Times headline writer and reporter no doubt knows their audience and writes to that taste. The Wall Street Journal writes to a completely different audience despite being in the same city. If a Journal reader wants the news paper’s opinion, there’s the opinion page. The same cannot be said of the Times.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Interestingly enough, the media bias story posted here recently showed that the Wall Street Journal is the most liberal news/media outlets in the country.
I enjoy both news organizations because of the in depth coverage and investigation they both provide. Their editorial pages are dramatically different and I prefer one over the other. But both are basically honest in their news reporting.
I wonder, though, whether the bias here is strictly left-right. As a non-leftist (economically, at least) who probably owns a bit of stock (via mutual funds) in some of those securities firms, I’d rather see some of that bonus money (and CEO pay, etc) go to stockholders as dividends. I can also easily imagine any number of liberals working on Wall Street who think extravagant bonuses are ok, as long as they’re the ones who’re getting them.
So perhaps the bias here is that the WSJ sees the core of its audience as those who work in the securities business, and the NYT doesn’t.
What is interesting to me is that even though it’s easy to recognize the bias in the different ledes, it’s difficult for me to care about the second. I already know that banks have been suffering, and the fact that bonuses have dropped is not really useful information to me, which is probably a signal of my own bias.
On the other hand, the comparison between the drop in profits and the bonus cuts is new information and pulls me to the first even though use of words like “only” when describing 14% clearly indicate a significant bias.
In other words, even recognizing the bias, it’s difficult for me to consciously consider the bias in the face of the other factors that draw me to one over the other, even though I can be confident my own personal bias is playing a part in that pull.
What is a bonuse?
There is a reason why all 25 of the top papers in America, EXCEPT THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, are losing circulation. This is a great example. The WSJ is far less politically loaded and far more factual and straightforward in this pairing. The NYT version is incredibly biased.
The WSJ piece was apologia for the bankers, not straight news.
I agree that the NYT is leftoid, which often shows in its news coverage, but in this case the Times article is superior because it at least points out that while bonuses are down 14% earnings are down by 51%.
Which would lead me to question why any bonuses are being awarded in the first place?
Much of the pay structure in the financial sector is not correlated to company earnings level, but to individual sales targets.
Heavy hitters typically earn a low base salary, say $100,000 as an example. Their incentive comp and bonus payout could be $500,000 and up. This is common place in the financial sector.
Incidentally, these types usually work 12 to 16 hour days, and if these firms are not paying out bonus/incentive payments in the stratosphere to these people, they are usually let go.
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Bonus there does not mean the same as bonus to most people. Some recieve little or no pay only bonus it is a weird pay structure, but with our weird tax laws often pay off. Though I believe it is more an incentivising scheme. kind of like being on commission.
“Heavy hitters typically earn a low base salary, say $100,000…”
Am I the only one who’s finding it really hard to think of $100K as low?
A typical trader would be earning around $250,000 or more with a limited incentive compensation scheme. Perhaps receiving bonus based on some targets.
Top performers will get promoted and their base pay will be trimmed significantly and the majority of their compensation is moved to incentive, sales targets and bonus.
It’s really funny that you complimented your own example. I remember freshman year at college in 2003 when all the business majors were required to subscribe to the WSJ newspaper. If they are still the standard at business schools maybe that effects the circulation numbers. No one factors in the fleet cars into Ford sales when comparing consumer sales figures of cars.
funny, the NYT chooses several normative positions, whereas the WSJ makes only positive statements.
Media bias indeed.
To truly be normative they would have to do a lot of explaining, a graduate level course in finance and economics. As it is they are merely framing the issue in a prejudicial manner. Would you report a fall in the price of corn by giving only the normative, ” the price of corn has fallen 15% even though corn consumption is down 30% in the U.S.”? Clearly there could be a number of other more important normative factors as well as the whole question of the mechanism of how consumption affects price.
Absent being able to explain the issue in sufficient depth simply reporting the bare facts and their likely consequences seems the most reasonable and nonprejudicial course.