CMV: The bias and impartiality of media is overstated and overemphasized, and the bias and partiality in interpretation of media is greatly underemphasized and underdiscussed.

I believe that the media that is being consumed by the general public in the US (newspapers, cable news, etc.) is far more fair and impartial and unbiased than people give it credit for, particularly when compared to how much bias exists when people interpret the media they consume. That is, while there is an industry-wide slant to the left (I would agree that the worst of the worst conservative media still makes the vast majority of left leaning media look like absolute saints) I think that bias affects far less people than the bias that exists in people’s interpretation of the media is equally problematic, if not worse.<br><br>It’s not regularly discussed how often people like to selectively read and selectively interpret the information they read, or how much their worldview influences their interpretation of what is written, what articles they choose to read in the first place, and how they choose to confirm biases while constantly disrespecting opposing viewpoints by choosing to not learn from them.<br><br>I think this is an extremely important issue, because the type of media bias we often discuss is something that third parties have control over, while our own biases are something we can learn to be aware of and respect.<br><br>The best example of this recently is from a post I made yesterday, in which I listed some real quotes from Trump, Sanders, and Biden, without identifying which was from which person, and then asked people to guess which quote came from which politician. By far the most common answer was “Trump. No question.” The problem was, it wasn’t always Trump. Often times, it was Biden or Sanders, which often left people flabbergasted and speechless. The comments on the post were very interesting, too. There were numerous comments that said things like “I never knew Trump was so [liberal/progressive/etc.].” All of the quotes used in the post were real quotes from recent history that are verifiable, yet often times, people are completely shocked that a specific politician holds a certain view because they had no idea that a liberal/conservative/progressive whatsoever held that view. I think this goes to show how our own biases influence the way we interpret media and perceive political figures. It also goes to show how much we are susceptible to believing whatever bias and spin that third party media wants us to have, because many times, we don’t look at a story and critically look at what the media is saying, we look at what they say and then try to figure out why they’re lying to us. <br><br>Now, I’m not saying that media bias doesn’t exist. I’m not saying that third party media bias doesn’t have a profound affect on society. I know that it absolutely does. What I’m saying is that, in the grand scheme, the bias that exists in third party media is actually relatively fair and impartial. Yes, many outlets bias to the left. However, I know that many conservative bias outlets exist, and it is completely fair to say that the worst of the worst of the conservative media makes the worst of the worst of left leaning media look like absolute saints. However, I believe that our own personal biases and bias interpretation of third party media is far, far worse than the real bias that third party media has.<br><br>I believe that everybody has their own biases. Yes, this means you. I don’t care what you believe, there is no such thing as perfect objectivity. What I do think exists, however, is the ability to be aware of your own biases, and then to try to see things from the other side. I think that when you let your own biases and preconceptions influence how you perceive reality, you lose sight of the truth. When we let our own interpretations of reality cloud our view of reality, we create our own echo chambers and then go on to convince ourselves that the echo chambers we created are accurate representations of reality. I think this problem is certainly solvable, but only if we are willing to see our own biases and then attempt to overcome them. <br><br>If you disagree, show me why!