"Our media have become mass producers of distortion: an industry whose task should be to filter out falsehood has become a conduit for propaganda and second hand news" -Nick Davies, The Guardian

Opening up the Internet on my computer, my Yahoo France home page flashes news stories in front of me every few seconds. Topics shown include  Miss France's faux pas, athlete Thierry Henry in tears due to a statue being made in his honor,  a warning about the dangers of teeth-whitening procedures , and the success of a French start-up company similar to eBay. This is the “news of today”, or what people want to see. Or at least what the media tells us we should want to know about. But how much of it is propaganda and secondhand news rather than a filter of falsehood?

Miss France during an interview

"J'ai été absolument horrifiée par ce que j'ai entendu. Je pense que vous savez que je suis engagée surtout dans la cause animale et je dirai juste ceci : Si on commençait à respecter son chien ou ses animaux, ça serait peut-être plus facile de respecter ses enfants ou même les hommes. Commençons par les animaux, après les hommes"

The recently crowned Miss France, a representative of the Alsace region, has embarrassed herself. She is a big supporter of animal rights, and in order to tell others about animal rights, she decided to bring up the topic of saving animals lives right after a story about a young boy dying after his parents put him into a washing machine naked as a punishment. I would call this a non sequitur, but apparently she found it to be an acceptable transition.

But how did the media report this story? Not exactly without bias. Rather than just stating what Miss France said for the public to be informed, the author expresses his or her opinion: that she interjected her opinion "awkwardly", and that comparing child and animal abuse "was perhaps not the appropriate choice". I agree with this sentiment, but isn't this something that we can let readers find out themselves after presenting solely the facts?

This article also seemed biased as it did not give any information about what Miss France or any of her supporters had to say about her faux pas. Perhaps she would have been able to better explain her motivation for saying those things. Or even if we had heard more of the context in which she spoke the words, we may not have been left with such a negative opinion of her. But a more moderate, unbiased article wouldn't sell as well. So instead we are left with a sensational article that tries to make people believe the extreme, and plays on stereotype: Miss France has beauty, but lacks brains.

Thierry Henry seeing his statue for the first time

For the most part, this article was an informative, news-worthy article. It gave us facts such as that he played 8 seasons, 369 games, and scored 226 goals. That information is useful, and the type of thing journalists should attempt to show the world. However, it was not completely free of bias either, with phrases like "Thierry Henry deserved a statue!" I am sure some people would disagree. 

It was brought to the publics attention because the media had always portrayed him as hiding his emotions before. So this change was a worthy news story to inform people about him acting in a way which was so different from normal for him. But the question: Has he really changed all that much? Henry said that the media had portrayed him as an unemotional person, not that he really had been. Has there been an attempt on the part of the media to make him appear a more hardened figure than he actually is? Perhaps. I wouldn't be surprised, based on how often characteristics are emphasized just to make a story more interesting or a character more intriguing.   

Thierry Henry video: "I don't really show emotions often"

 

A teeth-whitening procedure, proclaimed dangerous in the Yahoo.fr article

This article does aim to do what journalists should aim to do: Get out important information to the public. It talks about the hydrogen peroxide in the products is carcinogenic and can cause damage to the reproductive system. This is a worthy cause. However, this article also contains some qualities which journalists wouldn't exactly strive for. The article mentions how some teeth whitening procedures are being done by people other than dentists, and that putting fingers in mouths should be "a gesture reserved for dentists". Just because another person does not have the same degree does not mean they have not studied how to deal with peoples teeth safely and carefully.

What the study also fails to mention is that hydrogen peroxide is in almost all whitening toothpastes. So many people are exposing themselves to this danger daily already. The author of this article chose to "cherry pick", or selectively present the information that supports his position. This is one of many types of spin journalism.

An interesting video about cherry-picking statistics

And for the last yahoo.fr article, we have a story on a successful French start-up company.

Leboncoin.fr Homepage

This story is of thirty people who worked together to create a very successful business. It is an inspiring story, that journalists should be telling because it may interest or inspire people. It gives accurate statistics, even though you never know for sure if they left out statistics which they felt didn't fit into the portrayal of Leboncoin.fr as a successful company. Perhaps they have a lot of debt.

But as far as I could see the statistics looked good.

The news is also valuable to the public as the company has very recently created it's own iPhone app. So now people can use this site to buy what they need from almost any location. 

This news story has relevance to the public, seemed to be statistically accurate, and I could not even find strong evidence of bias in the text. The author may have used some words which had more positive than negative connotations for the company which could have very slightly unfairly influenced opinions. But overall, this was a very well-written article.

There are still some journalists who are still working to convey interesting news to the public truthfully. Of course there are plenty of others who use propaganda and bias, even if it's just a little bit, as you've seen as I picked apart of a few news articles and broadcasts. 

This is the “news of today”, or what people want to see. Or what the media tells us we should want to know about, depending on how you look at it. But I think the media generally does a good job of finding real news rather than rehashing old stories and feeding the public propaganda. At least reliable news sources. Also, there are many different types of websites that can be used to find today’s top news, some much less biased than others. For example, if you look at  the BBC homepage, many of the stories look similar, but there are a few which tend to be slightly more political. Some of the BBC news headlines today: Syria holds local elections despite opposition forces, Kiwis edge Australia in Thriller (Cricket), rioting in Paris due to a play which offends many Catholics, and the possibility of Vladimir Putin losing Russia’s next presidential election to a billionaire. Many different topics which respond to different public interests, just as they should.


BBC also tends to be a little less biased than sites like yahoo.fr, although they do not completely escape bias. Sometimes they are just able to use spin tactics to hide it better as well, as in the below video:

Nick Davies is certainly right in stating that media includes propaganda and falsehoods, however, there are also plenty of news stories that do succeed in fulfilling the responsibilities of media: exposing stories that the public wants to hear and revealing the truth.