Analyzing the truth in a fact challenged administration

The national media — that is most watched — has a bias. 

There, I said it. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, it’s not like it's a big mystery. A lot of the big media conglomerates have consistently shown a bias when it comes to reporting on politics. 

Organizations like: Fox News, Breitbart, The Blaze, The Daily Wire and Infowars report with a  conservative narrative while MSNBC, Huffington Post, Natural News, U.S. Uncut and Occupy Democrats skew liberal. 

Why is this important to understand? 

Because if you want to form a true opinion on a subject, then you need the most objective information possible. Media groups are supposed to present viewers with an array of facts and allow them to form their opinions from that. That is what being objective is. It is the standard that all journalists are held to coming out of school. The problem however, is that standard seems to get thrown to the wayside when you make it to some of the journalism ‘big league’ media outlets mentioned above.

Instead of reporting on a story and forming an opinion afterwards, some media groups already have a pre-set outlook about a certain issue and then look for stories or information to back up their claim, regardless of the validity or accuracy of their information. So really what viewers are getting is only one side of the story. 

There is a reason - on average - the people that are the least informed about what is going on in the political sphere are the ones that watch only Fox News or only MSNBC. The stories might change, but there is only one narrative from both, which ultimately serves more of their own interest rather than that of the general public. 

The point I’m trying to make though, is that in this new administration, where the facts are loosely regarded, you have to be attentive in finding the truth. Remember that Politifact - a pulitzer winning website that fact checks elected officials and pundits alike - scored 70 percent of Donald Trumps statements to be either mostly false, false or pants on fire false, i.e. a ridiculous claim. Depending on the news you watch however, that notion varies. 

Politics is not a black or white subject - like how the Fox News or MSNBC circle portray it - but more grey, so you have to actively look for multiple news sites to get an objective view on a certain subject. 

Groups like: The Associated Press, ABC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Al Jazeera, Vox, The Guardian, The Hill, The Economist, BBC, Reuter, Vice, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic are all reputable sources. 

When the White House excluded certain members of the press (CNN, Buzzfeed, The Guardian, The LA Times, Politico, The Hill, The Daily Mail, BBC, and The New York Times) from a press briefing on Feb. 25, they did so to the media members that have been the harshest critics of Trump and his ties to Russia. 

Just because a report is negative, that doesn’t mean that it is fake news as Trump has so eloquently stated on his Twitter feed. In large part (unless from the biased media groups mentioned in first paragraph) it means that the free press is challenging the administration, which inherently is their job. It is critical we have reporters that challenge public officials - regardless of the party in charge - because that helps ensure a healthy democracy. 

The press are not the opposition, just tasked with the burden of seeking out the facts. It is time that we respect those that are living by that practice and shun the sensational far left and far right newsgroups that poison the information being put out.  

Lest we forget the importance of having a free and unbiased media. 

What did Jefferson say, "Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe."

Notice that CNN was not mentioned in this post because while they don’t have a general bias, their news does not register on an analytical or complex scale and tends to be basic.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher or NCW Media as a whole. 

Zach Johnson can be reached at lcmeditor@gmail.com or (509) 682-2213.