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 Lesson
4: Balance and Fairness
The lesson includes a video program, the text for the
video
program, and a words in this story section. |
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Lesson 4: Balance and Fairness
Watch the video program about this lesson.
Then read the text and the words in this story section. |
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Lesson 4: Balance and Fairness |
Media organizations often use words like “balance” and
“fairness.” They want to say that they are reporting
without showing favoritism or making judgments. Balance
simply means giving equal time to both sides of an
issue, or not giving one side more importance.
For example, let’s consider a report about abortion
bills winding their way through U.S. legislatures. A
balanced report will give equal time to both supporters
of abortion and those opposed to the operation. However,
journalists must verify the facts put forth by each
side. It is not balance to allow both sides to make any
statement supporting their case. This can perpetuate
fake news and leaves the reader or viewer without solid
information.
“Will you just shut up for a minute and let me finish?
Pardon me, sir, you don’t get to tell me to shut up on
national television.”
Shouting and arguing does not bring balance to an issue
and it certainly isn’t journalism.
But journalists must be careful that seeking balance
doesn’t lead to unfair reporting, or setting up an
unfair moral equivalency or balance, between unequal
sides in an argument.
Actually, objectivity means reporting the truth, it
means getting everybody’s truth and reporting it, but
never creating a false moral equivalence. Never saying
all sides are equal because that’s not the truth, false.
That’s a cop-out, it’s a lie.
Journalist Christiane Amanpour is talking about the
Bosnian War, where she reported on attacks against
Bosnian Muslims. Experts called it a kind of ethnic
cleansing. To give equal weight to official denials of
the violence she saw would have been wrong.
Fair reporting represents reality, not a simple “he
said, she said.” False moral equivalency is a failure of
journalists to carry out their duties.
A smart news consumer must ask: is this coverage fair to
the evidence? And what exactly is evidence? In lesson 5
we will explain how to evaluate news coverage in order
to answer these questions.
This lesson is based on the News Literacy class at the
Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University. For
more on how to become a news literate citizen, go to The
Center for News Literacy. |
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Words in This Story |
- abortion
- n. a medical
procedure used to end a pregnancy and cause the
death of the fetus
- verify
- v. to prove, show,
find out, or state that (something) is true or
correct
-
perpetuate - v.
to cause (something that should be stopped, such as
a mistaken idea or a bad situation) to continue
-
equivalency - n.
a level of that is considered to be on the same
level
- ethnic
- adj. of or relating
to races or large groups of people who have the same
customs, religion, origin, etc.
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Source: Voice of America |
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