In defense of bias in news
Journalists try so hard to be “unbiased” because that’s who we were told to be in undergraduate Reporting 101.
I can still remember shaking when I saw my editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer stand up to come and tell me that my story wasn’t ready because I still needed more sources. I was 20 years old. This was my first internship. I wrote real stories that were published. And I was petrified. [Side note: this coaching both humbled and helped me tremendously.]
The public — especially now under this new administration — is demanding unbiased reporting. And journalists desperately want to provide that so they can stay as far away from the “fake news” category as possible.
The public may think “unbiased” reporting is the key to honest and trustworthy news. Don’t get me wrong, journalists will always vet sources and report truthfully. That never goes away. But I happen to think that this “sterilizing” of news diminishes it quite a bit.
“What if the journalist said, in other words, that bias may not always be a bad thing? That it may serve to create narrative texture or make a story understandable,” says the American Press Institute. “One can even argue that draining a story of all bias can drain it of its humanity, its lifeblood. In the biases of the community one can also find conflicting passions that bring stories to life.”
Journalists are real people, too, and I think it’s important to remember that. We have lives, significant others, families, kids, dogs, hobbies and so on. We should be more open about that.

“What if journalists acknowledged that bias does exist, that it is built into the choices they make when deciding what to leave in and what to leave out? That bias is embedded in the culture and language of the society on which the journalist reports? And that “news judgment” does reflect the journalist’s background as well as the news organization’s mission and business model?” the API says.
Journalists shouldn’t seek to rid bias, but should learn how to manage it, the API says.
I cringe when people say journalism isn’t difficult. It is, because all of these subtle choices require journalists to think. And we have to be conscious of bias at all times and act accordingly.
I think we can empower the communities we’re serving through our reporting by taking this approach. We must be careful and calculated about bias, but also be extremely open to listening and learning about a community. See, journalism is challenging!
The API detail’s one reporter’s way of managing bias, which I find quite interesting. When this reporter was assigned a story that required heavy reporting, he’d write the lead before he dug into the story. Once he had completed the story, he’d test his first lead against the final lead.
“If the final lead was too similar to the one he wrote before doing the reporting, he would know he hadn’t learned very much,” the API writes. That’s a sign the reporter may have only pursued information that confirms his biases, rather than overcoming preconceptions to find new information.”