Media bias on opposing viewpoints
"Both sides" redirects here. For the album, see
Both Sides
.
Among climate scientists in 2013, 97% of peer-reviewed papers that took a position on the cause of global warming said that humans are responsible, 3% said they were not. Among
Fox News
guests in late 2013, this was presented as a more even balance between the two viewpoints, with 31% of invited guests believing it was happening and 69% not.
[1]
False balance
, known colloquially as
bothsidesism
, is a
media bias
in which
journalists
present an issue as being more balanced between opposing viewpoints than the
evidence
supports. Journalists may present evidence and
arguments
out of proportion to the actual evidence for each side, or may omit information that would establish one side's claims as baseless. False balance has been cited as a cause of
misinformation
.
[2]
[3]
[4]
False balance is a bias which usually stems from an attempt to avoid bias and gives unsupported or dubious positions an illusion of respectability. It creates a public perception that some issues are scientifically contentious, though in reality they are not, therefore creating
doubt
about the scientific state of research. This can be exploited by interest groups such as corporations like the
fossil fuel
industry or the
tobacco industry
, or ideologically motivated activists such as
vaccination opponents
or
creationists
.
[5]
Examples of false balance in
reporting on science
issues include the topics of human-caused
climate change
versus
natural climate variability
, the
health effects of tobacco
, the alleged
relation between thiomersal and autism
,
[6]
alleged negative side effects of the
HPV vaccine
,
[7]
and
evolution
versus
intelligent design
.
[8]
Description and origin
[
edit
]
False balance emerges from the ideal of
journalistic objectivity
, where factual
news
is presented in a way that allows the reader to make determinations about how to interpret the
facts
, and interpretations or arguments around those facts are left to the opinion pages. Because many newsworthy events have two or more opposing camps making competing claims,
news media
are responsible for reporting all (credible or reasonable) opposing positions, along with verified facts that may support one or the other side of an issue. At one time, when false balance was prevalent, news media sometimes reported all positions as though they were equally credible, even though the facts clearly contradicted a position, or there was a substantial
consensus
on one side of an issue, and only a
fringe
or nascent theory supporting the other side.
Today, in contrast to prior decades, most media are willing to call out false information as incorrect, such as the idea that the Earth is not warming, or that
Donald Trump won
the
2020 United States presidential election
. For instance, claims that the Earth is not warming are regularly referred to in news (vs only
editorials
) as "denial", "misleading", or "debunked".
[9]
Prior to this shift, media would sometimes list all positions without clarifying that one position is known or generally agreed to be false.
Unlike most other media biases, false balance may stem from an attempt to
avoid
bias; producers and editors may confuse treating competing views
fairly
?i.e., in proportion to their actual merits and significance?with treating them
equally
, giving them equal time to present their views even when those views may be known beforehand to be based on false information.
[10]
Media would then present two opposing viewpoints on an issue as equally credible, or present a major issue on one side of a debate as having the same weight as a minor one on the other.
[11]
False balance can also originate from other motives such as
sensationalism
, where producers and editors may feel that a story portrayed as a contentious debate will be more commercially successful than a more accurate (or widely-agreed) account of the issue.
Science journalist Dirk Steffens mocked the practice as comparable to inviting a
flat Earther
to debate with an astrophysicist over the shape of the Earth, as if
the truth could be found somewhere in the middle
.
[12]
Liz Spayd
of
The New York Times
wrote: "The problem with false balance doctrine is that it masquerades as rational thinking."
[11]
Examples
[
edit
]
Climate change
[
edit
]
Although the scientific community almost unanimously attributes a majority of the
global warming
since 1950 to the effects of the
Industrial Revolution
,
[13]
[14]
[15]
there are a very small number ? a few dozen scientists out of tens of thousands ? who dispute the conclusion.
[16]
[17]
[18]
Giving equal voice to scientists on both sides makes it seem like there is a serious disagreement within the scientific community, when in fact there is an overwhelming
scientific consensus on climate change
that anthropogenic global warming exists.
[19]
MMR vaccine controversy
[
edit
]
Observers have criticized the involvement of mass media in the MMR vaccine controversy, what is known as "
science by press conference
",
[20]
alleging that the media provided
Andrew Wakefield
's study with more credibility than it deserved. A March 2007 paper in
BMC Public Health
by Shona Hilton, Mark Petticrew, and Kate Hunt postulated that media reports on Wakefield's study had "created the misleading impression that the evidence for the link with autism was as substantial as the evidence against".
[21]
Earlier papers in
Communication in Medicine
and the
British Medical Journal
concluded that media reports provided a misleading picture of the level of support for Wakefield's hypothesis.
[22]
[23]
[24]
See also
[
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]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Nuccitelli, Dana (23 October 2013).
"Fox News defends global warming false balance by denying the 97% consensus"
.
The Guardian
. Retrieved
15 April
2023
.
- ^
Boykoff, Maxwell T; Boykoff, Jules M (2004). "Balance as bias: global warming and the US prestige press".
Global Environmental Change
.
14
(2): 125?136.
doi
:
10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2003.10.001
.
- ^
Witynski, Max (22 July 2022).
"False balance in news coverage of climate change makes it harder to address the crisis"
.
Northwestern News
. Retrieved
15 June
2023
.
- ^
Imundo, Megan N.; Rapp, David N. (June 2022).
"When fairness is flawed: Effects of false balance reporting and weight-of-evidence statements on beliefs and perceptions of climate change"
.
Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition
.
11
(2): 258?271.
doi
:
10.1016/j.jarmac.2021.10.002
.
ISSN
2211-369X
. Retrieved
15 June
2023
.
- ^
Grimes, David Robert
(2019).
"A dangerous balancing act"
.
EMBO Reports
.
20
(8): e48706.
doi
:
10.15252/embr.201948706
.
PMC
6680130
.
PMID
31286661
.
.
- ^
Gross L (2009).
"A broken trust: lessons from the vaccine?autism wars"
.
PLoS Biol
.
7
(5): 756?9.
doi
:
10.1371/journal.pbio.1000114
.
PMC
2682483
.
PMID
19478850
.
- ^
Thomas, Ryan J.; Tandoc, Edson C.; Hinnant, Amanda (February 2017).
"False Balance in Public Health Reporting? Michele Bachmann, the HPV Vaccine, and "Mental Retardation"
"
.
Health Communication
.
32
(2): 152?160.
doi
:
10.1080/10410236.2015.1110006
.
ISSN
1532-7027
.
PMID
27192091
.
S2CID
3437969
.
- ^
Scott, Eugenie C. (2009).
Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction
(PDF)
(Second ed.). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
ISBN
9780313344275
. Retrieved
1 November
2017
.
- ^
Tabuchi, Hiroko
(2 March 2020).
"A Trump Insider Embeds Climate Denial in Scientific Research"
.
The New York Times
.
- ^
Krugman, Paul
(30 January 2006).
"A False Balance"
.
The New York Times
.
- ^
a
b
Spayd, Liz (10 September 2016).
"The Truth About 'False Balance'
"
.
The New York Times
.
ISSN
0362-4331
. Retrieved
13 September
2022
.
- ^
Deutschland, RedaktionsNetzwerk.
"Dirk Steffens zu Umgang mit Corona- und Klimaleugnern: "Falsch, Verblendeten das Wort zu erteilen"
"
.
www.rnd.de
(in German)
. Retrieved
13 September
2022
.
- ^
Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years, National Research Council (2006).
Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years
. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press.
ISBN
0-309-10225-1
.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link
)
- ^
Unger, Nadine
; Bond, Tami C.; Wang, James S.; Koch, Dorothy M.; Menon, Surabi; Shindell, Drew T.; Bauer, Susanne (23 February 2010).
"Attribution of climate forcing to economic sectors"
.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
.
107
(8): 3382?7.
Bibcode
:
2010PNAS..107.3382U
.
doi
:
10.1073/pnas.0906548107
.
PMC
2816198
.
PMID
20133724
.
- ^
Edenhofer, Ottmar; Pichs-Madruga, Ramon; Sokona, Youba; et al., eds. (2014).
Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change: Working Group III contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
. Cambridge, UK; New York:
Cambridge University Press
.
doi
:
10.1017/CBO9781107415416
.
ISBN
9781107058217
.
OCLC
892580682
.
- ^
Anderegg, William R. L.; Prall, James W.; Harold, Jacob;
Schneider, Stephen H.
(6 July 2010).
"Expert credibility in climate change"
.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
.
107
(27): 12107?9.
Bibcode
:
2010PNAS..10712107A
.
doi
:
10.1073/pnas.1003187107
.
PMC
2901439
.
PMID
20566872
.
- ^
Oreskes, Naomi
(3 December 2004).
"The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change"
.
Science
.
306
(5702): 1686.
doi
:
10.1126/science.1103618
.
PMID
15576594
.
- ^
Doran, Peter T.; Zimmerman, Maggie Kendall (20 January 2009).
"Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change"
(PDF)
.
Eos
.
90
(3): 22?23.
Bibcode
:
2009EOSTr..90...22D
.
doi
:
10.1029/2009EO030002
.
S2CID
128398335
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 25 September 2019
. Retrieved
8 September
2016
.
- ^
America's Climate Choices: Panel on Advancing the Science of Climate Change; National Research Council (2010).
Advancing the Science of Climate Change
. Washington, D.C.:
National Academies Press
.
ISBN
978-0-309-14588-6
.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- ^
Moore Andrew (2006).
"Bad science in the headlines: Who takes responsibility when science is distorted in the mass media?"
.
EMBO Reports
.
7
(12): 1193?1196.
doi
:
10.1038/sj.embor.7400862
.
PMC
1794697
.
PMID
17139292
.
- ^
Hilton S, Petticrew M, Hunt K (2007).
"Parents' champions vs. vested interests: Who do parents believe about MMR? A qualitative study"
.
BMC Public Health
.
7
: 42.
doi
:
10.1186/1471-2458-7-42
.
PMC
1851707
.
PMID
17391507
.
- ^
Speers T, Justin L (September 2004). "Journalists and jabs: media coverage of the MMR vaccine".
Communication and Medicine
.
1
(2): 171?181.
doi
:
10.1515/come.2004.1.2.171
.
PMID
16808699
.
S2CID
29969819
.
- ^
Jackson T (2003).
"MMR: more scrutiny, please"
.
The BMJ
.
326
(7401): 1272.
doi
:
10.1136/bmj.326.7401.1272
.
PMC
1126154
.
- ^
Dobson Roger (May 2003).
"Media misled the public over the MMR vaccine, study says"
.
The BMJ
.
326
(7399): 1107.
doi
:
10.1136/bmj.326.7399.1107-a
.
PMC
1150987
.
PMID
12763972
.
External links
[
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]