Bias, fairness and objectivity

A recurrent theme of the PLP’s campaign is that the media has a pro-UBP bias.

Is there any truth to this claim? Or is the PLP misrepresenting opinion as bias (whether deliberately or accidentally)?

A thought-provoking discussion of the difference between bias, fairness and objectivity can be found on the website of Malcolm Gladwell (author of bestsellers “The Tipping Point” and “Blink”). It’s long, but well worth a read.

Newspaper articles should be objective. Editorials and opinion pieces (and blogs) should be fair. “The difference between fairness and objectivity is considerable,” says Gladwell. “The test of a newspaper article is that when a reader finishes reading it, he or she has no idea where the writer stands on the issues under discussion. That's objectivity. With fairness, the bar is a little lower. It is perfectly permissible—even advisable—that a reader [should] know where the writer stands on the issue under discussion. It is important only that we be fair: that we accurately and appropriately represent the ideas at hand.”

Bias can be thought of as a systematic failure to observe these principles. A journalist is not biased if he has an opinion, only if that opinion is regularly evident in his articles. A columnist or editorial writer (or blogger) is not biased if he expresses opinions (that’s his job), only if he regularly misrepresents his intellectual opponents and fails to meet and confront them on their own terms.

Last week, the PLP’s blog suggested that the Royal Gazette was biased because of an editorial that said that the UBP had a lot of good ideas and an article that allegedly questioned the Premier’s leadership and the PLP’s unity. But that editorial did not misrepresent the PLP’s position. Indeed, it acknowledged that their proposals on the Bermuda College were worth debating. As for the article, not only was every statement factual (assuming that the Gazette wasn’t fabricating anything), it also quoted several MPs who said they thought the Premier was secure in his job.

Indeed, ironically enough it was the PLP's blog that was the one guilty of a lack of fairness. It misrepresented the Gazette by implying that they had acknowledged that their editorial was evidence of their pro-UBP bias, whereas what the Gazette actually acknowledged was that there was a risk that the PLP could misconstrue it as such.

Is the journalist’s opinion ever visible in local news stories? Certainly. Matthew Taylor’s recent description of the Premier’s PLP banquet speech as an “insult-strewn tirade” revealed his opinion of the speech. Similarly, when the Bermuda Sun’s Nigel Regan suggested that reports attempting to paint the government as anti-expatriate were “mostly politically driven”, he was also guilty of failing to suppress his own opinions. In the case of both newspapers, however, I’m not sure this happens sufficiently frequently to qualify as bias.

As for the Gazette’s editorials, I can’t think of one example where they have misrepresented the facts. Thus, I don’t see how anyone could suggest that they systematically do so.

Moreover, there are plenty of counter-examples, such as Friday’s article which gave front-page billing to a PLP poll that put the party ahead of the UBP, and a recent editorial that praised the Premier for his part in putting on the PGA Grand Slam of Golf and the Bermuda Music Festival.

An article that is critical is not the same as an article that is unfair. And having an opinion is not the same as having a bias.