How to spot media bias

If you turn to the products and services pages, you'll find that I offer a product called MediaScope, which is aimed at documenting bias in media coverage.

If a client wants to be effective in challenging a journalist or media outlet with a bias complaint, they'll need to be able to discuss their claim in terms that journalists use. Simply saying, “The tone of the broadcast wasn't fair,” isn't going to sway a journalist who may hear similar complaints frequently.

So what does cause journalists to take a bias complaint seriously?

First, you have to look at the journalist's mindset as they approach an article. Typically, a mainstream journalist is expected to produce stories that are fair and balanced. If they fail to do that, then they are open to criticism, even by their own journalistic standards.

Still, it can be difficult to pin down actual media bias when looking at a news article. It's not just a case of measuring inches in a story; it has as much or more to do with the content of the comments in the story.

Let me give a few examples of the types of issues you could raise that would cause a journalist to take your media bias complaint to heart. 

Your comments don't appear until the second half of the article. Since news articles lose readers at the end of each paragraph, having your comments pushed toward the bottom means that many readers won't hear your side at all.

Your comments confirm facts about the story, but the other side's comments condemn your actions. This one's a little tricky. It seems as if you've being given equal time, but in reality you're not being given space to address the main issues of the article.

You aren't called in time to prepare an adequate response for the story. In “gotcha” journalism, a common technique is to spend most of the newsgathering time writing the story as a hit piece, then calling up the target – you – an hour or so before the story has to be submitted and asking for detailed answers to several complex questions. It's an ambush that, again, makes it look as if the process is fair, even though it isn't.

So, how do you deal effectively with your perceptions that you're not being treated fairly? First, be sure that your complaints are targeted to penetrate the journalist mindset, then get ready to make a phone call.