Perceptions and Bias

It's no wonder people don't enjoy watching or reading the news. With so much bias incoporated into the news it becomes difficult to form your own opinion. Despite claims of being "equal" and "impartial" it seems everyone has their own agenda to push. So I looked for a news article from two different sources to see for myself the differences in perceptions of two different media sources. The high school I attended is located in a very small town so the majority of the students are conservative, so I've heard many complaints about the "liberal" media. However, the right has its fair share of help.

The articles I read discussed Fred Thompson as a GOP candidate and presidential hopeful. The first source I looked at was Fox News which is known to lean right in its reports. Maybe it was because the topic discussed fit right into Fox News criteria or I just picked the right article, but it didn't seem to be littered with partisanship. It discussed the debate in its entirety focusing on how well/poor Fred Thompson "performed". They used specific quotes from the debate to illustrate different points being made in the article. The second source I looked at was msnbc/newsweek. I didn't find a lot of articles discussing Fred Thompson but I did find one in "The Gaggle" which by definition is "in Washington, a flock of reorters pecking at a politician". The article was brief and focused primarily just on Thompson. Most of it was pretty negative which could be considered either biased or honest. I think the most important thing to take into account is that most sources will either unconsciously or consciously inundate their own views into their writing. As long as you realize and acknowledge this fact as you're reading/watching the news, you won't become a "victim" of unjust reporting.