Headlines are often clickbait, often written by an editor, rather than an article’s author, meant to tease readers. They can signal the angle or bias of a story, but not aways. Here’s a challenge.
Scan and ponder these four headlines:
“The Risk That Josh Shapiro Could Pose to Kamala Harris’ Campaign”
“Some House Republicans slam Vance as Trump’s VP pick: ‘The worst choice’”
“Promising To Restore ‘Law and Order,’ Trump Falsely Claims Crime Is Rising”
“JD Vance Referred to Interracial Marriages as ‘Two-Colored’ in 2021”
What questions, doubts, reactions arise? Notice these, maybe write them down. We’re often so busy we often bypass that little voice in the back of our heads. Do you think you can discern the political bias of the article or its publishing source?
“The Risk That Josh Shapiro Could Pose to Kamala Harris’ Campaign” is from Slate, which media bias organizations adfontesmedia.com and allsides.com assess as a far left-biased news organization.
“Some House Republicans slam Vance as Trump’s VP pick: ‘The worst choice’” is from The Hill, a source that allsides.com labels as center. Meanwhile, adfontesmedia.com rates it as just slightly left of center, comparable to Sky News.
“Promising To Restore ‘Law and Order,’ Trump Falsely Claims Crime Is Rising” is from Reason Magazine, a source that is “right-leaning,” according to the same organizations.
“JD Vance Referred to Interracial Marriages as ‘Two-Colored’ in 2021” is from MeidasTouch, a newer organization that adfontesmedia.com rates as left leaning.
Does any of this surprise you? Which source are you most likely to trust? Is there one that you’d read with a more critical, skeptical eye? With distrust in institutions at a notable high, people frequently avoid or discredit newspapers or news media that don’t fit the filter they use to make sense of what is happening in the world. Too busy to read all 922 pages of Project 2025, a party’s platform, or the nuances of a case like the Delphi murders, we turn to reporters and columnists to distill the key points. But when a competing claim surfaces, we are forced to reckon with which source to trust.
Beth Lindsay, Research and Instruction Librarian at Wabash College, advocates that you SIFT. Taken from Mike Caulfield and Sam Wineburg’s book “Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Less Duped, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online,” SIFT is an acronym to help you navigate bias.
The S is for stop. Stop and consider how a headline or article makes you feel and if “it seems designed to elicit strong emotion (especially anger)?” said Lindsay. “Is this a topic with which I am already quite familiar and thus have a well-informed opinion, or is it something I’m less familiar with, and would need to learn more to help me form an opinion?”
I stands for investigate before reading. Lindsay emphasizes that you should do this before reading because that’s before you form an opinion. Who wrote the story or news script? Who pays for it? When was it written/recorded? Where and by whom? Is it non-profit or for profit?
With so many people turning to social media for information, it can be challenging to investigate. Social media includes a lot of “common folk” offering up their opinions, hoping to influence the rest of us. In fact, that’s a rhetorical tactic called appeal to common folk where the speaker purports to be “just one of us” and a “voice for common sense.” It’s worth asking, what is their motive? Do they believe themselves influencers? Are we listening to them because we want to learn or because we want to be affirmed in our point of view?
When you stumble across a new source or voice, it’s worth cross-checking the facts, quotes and experts they cite. The News Literacy Project acknowledges that bias seeps into even the most well-intentioned reporters, thinkers and publishing organizations.
If your inner alarm system triggers, consider the possibility of “bias creep.” Bias in reporting takes a variety of forms. We’ve indirectly addressed partisan bias (the leaning of the writer and organization) and corporate bias (who pays for it). In demographic bias, the writer caters to his audience to please them. This can even lead to being “too neutral” and omitting key details for the audience’s sake.
There’s also coverage bias. The old “If it bleeds, it leads” rule of thumb comes to mind. When news rooms focus on violent crime because it’s sensational, it can provoke people to believe that violent crime is overtaking their city, state or nation, even if police data shows it is dropping overall.
Finding better coverage challenges us to ask, “who is in a better position to know?” Trace those quotes and claims to the original source and check if they’ve been lifted out of context. How do they sound if lifted out of the sentence around them? If they were spoken aloud, how does the tone of voice affect you? Is it sarcastic, honest and straight-forward? Is it challenging or targeted?
“What I love about SIFT is that it is *very* quick, and, once you have confidence in a source, you don’t need to continue the process,” Lindsay said. “So, for example, while no source is perfect, I have relatively more confidence in accuracy from The Wall Street Journal versus an online news outlet I’ve never heard of and can’t find out anything about their ownership structure or editorial process.”
It’s important to notice when we’re in a bubble, filtering out voices we disagree with, and not doing due diligence to see how other people are framing a story, if quotes have been taken out of context, or if facts have been omitted or misconstrued. Lindsay notes that when we’re motivated, we do the research and evaluate our sources.
“People already do it in their everyday lives, like when they want to buy sneakers or a new phone,” Lindsay said.
The onus is on us. Buyer beware, as the saying goes.
People frequently lament that there’s not a reliable media source out there. In part, that shift has occurred because of the rise of social media and YouTube as platforms to which people turn for information. It compelled trusted institutions to find space there (and according to Bari Weiss, former NY Times reporter, changed the culture of those organizations.) It complicated how news lived up to its long-standing journalistic ethics. The Society of Professional Journalists still maintains that code, which is quite extensive. Some key portions include:
A call for journalists to take responsibility for the accuracy and balance of their work. Editors should demand reporters to get at least two sources to verify even basic facts — and until the end of the Fairness Doctrine under Ronald Reagan’s administration, outlets were required to present both sides opinions if the news story involved opinions. Reporters are expected to identify their sources and give the public as much information as possible to identify the sources’ motivation and reliability.
Journalists are to give voice to the voiceless, seek out diverse perspectives, be wary of how their own values and experiences may influence the word choice, questions asked, the frame of the story or any way they were reporting. They are to label advocacy and commentary as different from straight news. They should never distort information and always attribute other people’s words and ideas properly.
Reporters are expected to minimize harm, balance the public’s right to know with safety, avoid conflicts of interest like exchanging information for money or influence. They are to encourage civil dialogue.
If a reporter or news source flagrantly refuses to adhere to these, perhaps we should avoid them. The same is true for what we view on social media.
When social media took over in the early 2000s, it gave voice to people who didn’t know or care about a standard of ethics. The hyperbole and reactionary posts appeal to our outrage and excite our emotions. And since 2016, social media companies like Facebook (and its subsidiaries Instagram and Threads) de-platformed traditional news by hiding the articles we were sharing, giving people more reasons to think everything is fake news.
Over 2,500 news organizations have closed since 2005, 360 since the pandemic, including small newspapers and papers owned locally. Some news organizations are now owned by conglomerates whose primary objective is to turn a profit for shareholders, not to ensure accuracy and reliability. They slashed staff and local coverage. It made it harder for all papers.
So it is buyer beware. Or maybe a better comparison is to a civic responsibility like jury duty. When we are deliberate in listening to a story told from different sides, each with their own “expert” sources, we can discern the truth we’re so hungry to find.
The League of Women Voters, a non-partisan, multi-issue organization encourages informed and active participation in government, works to increase public understanding of major policy issues and influences public policy through education and advocacy. All men and women are invited to join the LWV where hands-on work to safeguard democracy leads to civic improvement. For information, visit the website www.lwvmontcoin.org or the League of Women Voters of Montgomery County, IN Facebook page.
