Sunday, November 28, 2010

Is there such a thing as an unbiased view?

I frequently read various articles on CNN.com and today as I read the comments I noticed several people commenting that they did not believe CNN provided all the information that should appear in the article. As I reread the article with these objections in mind I began to question how objective and unbiased of an article I read and also the larger topic of is there such a thing as unbiased reporting. Just by choosing which stories appear and which do not get covered shows a bias that inherently occurs in reporting. Beyond that issue there resides the question of does the reporter covering an issue affect the opinion on the issue no matter how much they try to keep their own opinions out? Just by presenting facts in a different order it could change how people view the issue, by leaving them with a different last impression or by putting an astonishing fact before one that appears insignificant but plays a key role which makes the first fact overshadow the other and make it insignificant to the reader. Throughout our classes we always seem to end up discussing how objective the narrator or writer managed to be and whether they showed a bias in one direction or another. However as I read the article and thought about these issues I have to question, is there such a thing as an unbiased view?

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