The Media has Blind Spots, Not Biases

In July Congress passed a recission bill to claw back $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the organization that allocates funds to local National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Station affiliates. In many regions these are the last remaining media sources providing local news coverage as local media organizations have been decimated by changes to the media ecosystem, resulting in news deserts in much of the country. Both corporate consolidation of media companies and the disaggregation of sources for information with TikTok, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, and various other internet sites has put the national media environment in flux as well. Warner Brothers Discovery plans to spin off CNN and some of its other cable channels from its more profitable streaming business. 

The claw back of CPB funding is also only one instance in what has become a larger pattern of behavior in Trump's nascent second term. Earlier this year ABC settled a defamation lawsuit with President Trump for $15 million. The lawsuit stemmed from George Stephanopoulos colloquially describing then presidential candidate Trump as a rapist, when he was found civilly liable for sexual assault. CBS similarly settled a suit with President Trump for $16 million related to 60-Minutes editing of an interview with presidential candidate Kamala Harris for a promotional ad, despite this being normal practice and her full response being aired during the program’s regular broadcast. The Trump administration has also said they would select the members of the press pool, a responsibility normally held by the White House Correspondents' Association. Further, the Associated Press has been removed from the press pool for their refusal to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.

While past Presidents have bristled at the coverage they’ve received from the media, the actions of the current administrations are without precedent. These actions are, however, the logical conclusion of  a decade of attacks against the media from Trump. Since he began his first campaign for president, Trump has called the media “fake news” and escalated his attacks from there. 

Said another way, Trump is accusing the media of being biased against him. Like so much with Trump, this criticism is not original to him. Since this isn’t exactly a new argument, media organizations have addressed these criticisms. However, I think there is a component of this discussion that is often overlooked, so lets start by understanding the disagreement as it currently stands. 

Critics of the media argue that there is a liberal group-think or monoculture at the elite levels of our society. This includes the executives of media organizations who then guide the editorial decisions in the country’s newsrooms. It also includes the professors and administrators at universities that are not only educating and training the next generation of journalists, but also where scientific and sociological experts are sourced for stories, independent scientific research is conducted, and lawyers and judges learn their trade. Depending the individual making the argument the reasons for this elite’s bias towards the Democratic party ranges from a deep belief in the project of neo-liberalism; to being a part of and beneficiary of Democratic governance; to the true bias being against Trump specifically from a uniparty. 

The response to these arguments range from satirical snark, as Stephen Colbert quipped at the 2006 correspondence dinner that “reality has a well-known liberal bias”, to the more earnest that point out all the ways in which the media strives to be fact-based and unbiased. News organizations will publish corrections or publicly retract stories when they get something wrong in an effort to maintain trust and credibility. Further, when reporting on a story media organizations will ensure that both sides of an issue are fairly represented. 

These retorts have not only not quieted the criticisms of bias that, if were honest, are coming largely from the political right, but invited criticisms from the political left; specifically in regards to the last defense. Media observers point out the reductiveness of this defense. Because our political system has been reduced to a two party system our media views all issues through a conservative/liberal lens. 

You would be hard pressed to find an issue with only two sides, which suggests that media organizations are regularly determining which issue positions are legitimate and which are illegitimate. It is perfectly appropriate for a news organization to use this sort of editorial discretion. However, if the mechanism to determine the legitimacy of those positions is the bifurcation of our political system this would be an abdication of that news organization’s responsibility as journalists. Further, other issue positions might warrant individual examination by a journalist so as to not normalize that position by contrasting it with past or current policies, or other mainstream issue positions. This is a nuanced position, which is why journalists should be professionals with a set of standards and ethics guiding these decisions. 

It is also worth considering the motivation behind the accusations of bias within the media. To some extent this is projection—every accusation is a confession. The political Right has cultivated and benefited from a Conservative media ecosystem. While there are a great many benefits in this media ecosystem it also has a weakness, illegitimacy that comes from partisan bias. One solution to this problem would be to be less partisanly biased, but this would diminish the partisan benefits. The other solution is to attack the rest of the media as having a liberal bias. There can be no fact-based critiques or corrections from other media organizations of Conservative media if those are simply partisan attacks. And if they are caught towing the party-line? It's all part of the business, all media organizations do it. At least that's what they would like you to believe. 

There is a deeper cynicism here though. First, the type of fair and balanced reporting demanded by Conservatives was once a regulatory requirement enforced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This was called the Fairness Doctrine and it mandated that broadcasters devote time to contrasting views on issues of public importance. It was Republican President Reagan's FCC repealed this doctrine in 1987 which lead to the rise of Conservative AM talk radio. Gone was the pretense of fairness on these Conservative talk radio shows. 

Almost a decade later Fox News would be created by Roger Ailes who worked in the Nixon, Reagan, and Bush White Houses. It was in the Nixon administration that Ailes authored a memo outlining his desire to create a Republican news network to "avoid the  censorship, the priorities, and the prejudices of network news selectors and disseminators." This leads into the second point; given Fox News' position within the broader media ecosystem they are able to lend credibility to Conservative talking points and policy priorities. In this way Fox is able to strongly influence the editorial decisions of the other news networks so those news networks do not appear biased by not covering the stories that Fox News is covering. However, there is an asymmetry here; Fox is not at all interested in taking their editorial cues from the other media organizations. Remember, they've already eroded the public trust in media so they do not need to be worried about appearing partisan or biased. 

What is unfortunately lost in this debate is that there is a bias in media, its just not a partisan bias. For this reason I will call it blind spots to avoid confusion, and because I do not believe it is necessarily willful or intentional. This is not a critique of how the media covers stories but rather what stories the media chooses to cover. 

Part of this is the direct result of the hollowing out of local news organizations. Often it was the beat reporters in the small towns across America that would do the investigative legwork that would uncover a story of national importance to be picked up and elevated by the national news networks. Without this infrastructure of local reporters it is harder for larger organizations to identify the important stories. It is more difficult to report on how national policy making is affecting individuals in small towns across the country. It is that much harder to know what are the important issues in these areas.  

In practice this means that when someone listens to NPR or picks up the New York Times they will hear or see stories from DC and New York and will hear about national policy or a humanitarian special interest story from a faraway country. What they wont find is stories about their community, or a community like theirs, or even about the issues their community faces. This results in a kind of disenfranchisement, disengagement, and resentment. These communities view the media as wholly out of touch with their reality and so what relevance does the media have to these communities? What legitimacy does the media have to say what the important issues of the day are? What credibility does the media have? 

Compounding this feeling of resentment are the (in)famous "diner stories". Every four years journalist from the large news organizations fan out across the country in search of "real America" only found in the diners in "middle America" or "fly over country"—already you may be picking up a hint of condescension in how we refer to these communities. The journalists come to observe these voters as if they are some foreign culture to be studied and reported back to civilization. They will claim that understanding which issues are important to these voters is essential to understanding the "mood of the nation". But as soon as the ballots are cast the reporters retreat back in their studios, betraying a deep insincerity in the interest in these communities. 

Rebuilding the network of local news organizations is the obvious solution to this issue. Joshua Darr wrote for FiveThirtyEight, "a growing body of research has found that government is worse off when local news suffers. In fact, inadequate local news has been linked to more corruption, less competitive elections, and weaker municipal finances and a prevalence of party-line politicians who don’t bring benefits back to their districts... in the absence of local news, people are more likely to vote for one party up and down the ballot”. Short of rebuilding a robust local news environment, which would be a years long project, the national organizations need to take seriously their credibility gap in "middle America". Resources need to be put into covering these communities consistently, not once every four years. 

The Culture Warriors Are Fighting the Wrong Battles

I recently started reading Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut and I was struck by something in the very first chapter; a sense of shared identity.  Mr. Vonnegut begins this book by relaying a story of the time he and a friend visited Dresden after the war. There they befriended the cab driver who took them to the slaughterhouse Mr. Vonnegut and his friend were held at night as prisoners of war. The cabbie had also served in WWII, on the German side, and was also a prisoner of war. Though on opposite sides of the conflict and having lived half a world away these three men shared an experience that, 23 years later, brought them together. Later, describing the time he spent writing as a police reporter for the Chicago City News Bureau Mr. Vonnegut writes, "the very toughest reporters and writers were women who had taken over the jobs of men who'd gone to war." 

"World War Two had certainly made everybody very tough," Mr. Vonnegut later concludes (emphasis my own). Mr. Vonnegut is writing anecdotally about post-war America which is an extreme case. At no other point in our history was the entire nation so mobilized towards a singular goal. Men were drafted; women stepped in to fill jobs at home to produce bullets, bombs, tanks, and planes; kids collected scrap metal; families rationed. The war was felt by everybody. An entire nation worked towards a singular goal, sacrificed to achieve it. 

In the decades that followed Americans would have a similar unifying struggle against Soviet ambitions. America and her allies airlifted supplies to West Berlin in one of the greatest logistical feats in history after the Soviets blockaded the city, only to see the Berlin Wall erected. Americans shared angst over Sputnik and gathered around their televisions with nervous excitement as Neil Armstrong stepped out onto the lunar surface. Americans fought in the Korean and Vietnam wars. But Americans were not asked to sacrifice for these events. Not uniformly at least. The Berlin Blockade, Airlift, and Wall were events happening across the Atlantic. The space race was a competition between large government agencies. The Korean War was branded the "Forgotten War". Though a draft was enacted to fight the Vietnam War those with means fairly easily avoided being drafted. It was a war fought by the poor and disadvantaged Americans, and those who stayed home weren't asked to ration, collect scrap, or buy war bonds to support the war effort. 

Even in this time, however, America still has a shared sense of identity. Each town had it's selection of local papers delivered to each door every morning. Whether you wanted the community news, classifieds, sports, or funnies you had to flip through the other sections to get where you were going. You would see the news of the day. Whether you chose to engage with it or not was another matter, but at least you were aware. Radio stations were few and TV stations were fewer. If you weren't interested in watching the nightly news you likely caught the beginning or end of the program while sitting down to catch that evening's sitcom. Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in America. 

 

This meant that everyone was listening to the same music, watching the same shows, seeing the same news. Now, in very many ways, this is a rose-tinted look back. What I am describing was controlled by and created for white, Christian, men. As I hope will become clear this is not a longing for this specific version of shared culture, more so a lamenting of the lack thereof (which I'll get into shortly). Furthermore, this is a literal whitewashing; entire economies existed to service the segments of society not catered to by this dominant mono-culture.

As those decades passed technology advanced, reshaping the media and cultural environment. With the growing popularity of FM radio and the Regan administration's rollback of the fairness doctrine, AM radio would become the domain of right-wing talk radio. Cable TV would give people 100 channels to choose from instead of 5. News would have its own, 24-hour, channels; music would have its own channel; history would have its own channel; and so on. TiVo and iTunes would make watching shows at their scheduled time or listening to the radio a thing of the past, but would quickly give way to streaming. The 90s Letterman vs Leno rivalry gave way to... silence. Citing decreased viewership and financial constraints CBS would be cancelling the Late Show in May 2026, the show once hosted by David Letterman.

Anymore the only shared cultural event that has to be viewed live is sports. While I don't know how this plays out, I think it is worth flagging that the rise of fantasy sports leagues and legalization of sports betting has diminished team fandom with people instead watching to see if they win their parlay or a player delivers on the fantasy projection. I think the jury is still out on whether this is good or bad in the context of shared culture.

This is all before considering the effect of social media. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok promised to bring people together, to create community, to be a virtual public square. What they have done through their algorithms is to provide endless personalized content that rarely has any connection to broader cultural trends, such as they are. If something does breakthrough it is fleeting, lasting a few weeks at most. What I see in my feed will be different from what you see in yours. 

This is a problem that will be amplified by AI. Content will be able to be generated in real time to cater to your preferences. Connection to reality, truth, or share experiences will be irrelevant, the only relevant question will be, "will this keep you engaged?"

 

At the same time, however, there has been some movement in the other direction. Walmart, Target, Amazon, Starbucks, McDonald's, Applebee's, and so many other chains like them have replaced the unique and distinct mom and pop shops and diners that used to populate every town. A corporate blandness and mediocrity that promises consistency whether you're walking into a store in New York City or Cleveland. To paraphrase Jon Lovett, Americans made a trade with these corporations, accepting uninteresting sameness for convenience and low prices. What we didn't account for was just how valuable the unique cultural oddities locally owned shops and restaurants are to their communities. 

 

In summary, we have exchanged what was a locally diverse and interesting nation that shared a common reality for a nationally uniform and uninteresting nation with no shared common reality. 

 

The Republican Party has many self-identified culture warriors. The current administration is filled with them. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is returning a Confederate statue to Arlington National Cemetery, renaming "woke" US Navy ships, and reverting the names of military bases to the names that had honored Confederate generals. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has revoked visas of students that have expressed "pro-Palestinian views" and will review the social media of student visa applicants. 

 

Earlier this week the Department of Homeland Security pushed a recruitment ad reading "serve your country! Defend your culture! No undergraduate degree required!". 

In one sense I am a little confused but what is meant by "defend your culture". On the one hand, this is coming from the party of culture warriors, but they refuse to pass legislation regulating social media companies or AI; something that actually could, if done right, protect our culture. On the other, they have made it very clear (by their statements and actions) they mean white culture. 

You might think this is unfair, but the Vice President, JD Vance, is arguing that America isn't a nation founded on ideas. During a speech at the Claremont Institute on July 4th JD had the following to say (emphasis my own);

 

Every Western Society, as I stand here today, has significant demographic and cultural problems. There is something about Western liberalism that seems almost suicidal, or at least socially parasitic, that tends to feed off of a healthy host until there's nothing left. That's why the demographic trends across the West are so bad, why so many young people, historically high numbers in all European countries, say that they would not die for their own country, because something about the liberal project in 2025 is just broken....

 

But even so, if you were to ask yourself in 2025 what an American is, I hate to say it, very few of our leaders actually have a good answer. Is it purely agreement with the creedal principles of America? I know the Claremont Institute is dedicated to the founding vision of the United States of America. It's a beautiful and wonderful founding vision, but it's not enough by itself.

 

If you think about it, identifying America just with agreeing with the principles, let's say, of the Declaration of independence, that's a definition that is way over-inclusive and under-inclusive at the same time. What do I mean by that? Well, first of all, it would include hundreds of millions, maybe billions, of foreign citizens who agree with the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Must we admit all of them tomorrow? If you follow that logic of America as a purely creedal nation, America purely as an idea, that is where it would lead you. But at the same time, that answer would also reject a lot of people that the ADL (anti-defamation league) would label as domestic extremists. Even those very Americans had their ancestors fight in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. And I happen to think that it's absurd, and the modern left seems dedicated to doing this, to saying, you don't belong in America unless you agree with progressive liberalism in 2025. I think the people whose ancestors fought in the Civil War have a hell of a lot more claim over America than the people who say they don't belong. 

 

In this section of the speech JD is addressing the same lack of cultural cohesion, though he identifies different root causes; liberalism and immigration. Now it is worth taking this argument seriously because there are those who have arrived at this conclusion honestly. However, it is not worth taking JD seriously. This is a man who is serving as Vice President to a man he called "America's Hitler" and "cultural heroine". Furthermore, JD is standing up straw men arguments to easily knockdown to cosplay as an intellectual. 

 

No, I wont take JD seriously, but I will engage with the argument. It begins by saying a nation defined by an idea is too inclusive  and will change too rapidly, fragmenting it's culture. To that I would say, this has always been true of America. We were, in fact, a nation founded on ideals. A Frenchman could become an American in a way an American could never become a Frenchman. That was true at our founding and that is still true today. 

 

Further, there is a circular contradiction in this argument. If an immigrant believes in liberal self-governance they are culturally aligned with America, but in granting them citizenship it would fragment our culture so they shouldn't be granted citizenship. Not that anyone is seriously making the argument that every immigrant that believes in liberal self-governance should be made an American citizen, but that immigrant is more culturally aligned with America than a native born citizen making blood and soil arguments about nationality, for example. 

 

If there is a cultural through-line in America from our founding to today it is a culture of assimilation. It has not always been without its challenges; Irish immigrants, Chinese immigrant, German immigrants during WWI, Japanese immigrants during WWII, Central and South American Immigrants, Jews, Catholics, all faced various forms and degrees of xenophobia. The assimilation of these cultures, ethnicities, and religions has created a beautiful tapestry in this country with different musical styles, foods, and art. 

 

Lastly, what this argument does not consider or address is the fragmentation of information sources. The Trump administration has functionally halted all immigration to the country and our information sources are no better. He could be successful in deporting all non-citizens and it would not amend our information environment. He could remove all naturalized citizens and those that remain would still be in their information silos. 

 

I don't know what the solution to this is. To mix metaphors, we are so far down this road I'm not sure how we unring the bell. We are at a point in this country where we don't have a shared reality. Some would blame immigrants for diluting and fragmenting our culture. This is the tried and true tactic of othering individuals used by aspiring dictators. Reality has been so distorted that there are some that doubt whether the Holocaust occurred. I can't help but wonder if the loss of a generation so uniformly anchored in a single event has unmoored us. It seems that even shared experiences in which we were all asked to sacrifice like the COVID pandemic are quickly distorted through our fractured media environment.