Opinion: News Outlets Need To Distinguish Between Opinion and Real News
It’s no secret that American news outlets are known to be incredibly biased, and that their audiences reflect that bias, usually based on political ideologies and age. America’s primary news sources are FOX News and CNN, 16% and 12% of American viewers respectively, and according to All Sides, an organization for unbiased news, FOX and CNN couldn’t be further apart on the political spectrum. The next leading news source is NPR, which is considered to be an unbiased outlet besides their left leaning opinion section, but only 5% of Americans regularly get their news from NPR.
So what does all this mean? This means that more than a quarter of Americans get their news from FOX or CNN, adding fuel to their political fire. These networks in particular are notorious for reporting journalist’s/personality’s own opinions, without making it obvious to viewers that they are consuming opinion information rather than factual news.
The Poynter Institute suggests that news outlets blatantly say what type of news piece people are reading/watching, and use specific wording that everyone is able to understand. In this case, online opinion stories should always start with “Opinion: [Title]”. According to Joy Mayer, founder and director of Trusting News, including the word ‘opinion’ in the title “is the only clear word to use.”
NPR uses this headline junction to clarify that the story is an opinion story, and should be taken with a grain of salt.
The story itself is very unbiased also, as that is usually the nature of NPR’s reporting. It consists mainly of anecdotes by friends and family members of gun violence victims, making a case against gun violence without blatantly saying so.
When CNN reports opinion pieces, the bias is a bit more obvious and the opinion element is a bit more hidden in fine text.
The title “Perspectives” is a way to say opinion without really saying that a piece is opinion, which Mayer says can be confusing to readers who might take the story as real information. Underneath the title, the authors are credited as opinion authors, but not every reader will pay attention to that and mistake it for real news.
What differentiates this story from the upcoming FOX story is that it includes a LOT of factual evidence to back up their claims. They use direct sources, quantified data and articulate that everything being said is at least valid to the argument.
Fox & Friends is an opinion based talk show on the FOX News network, but nowhere on the website nor in the video clip states that the story is an opinion. Even worse, they bring in a guest to discuss the issues rather than reporting their own findings, and even then there are hardly any facts included in the reporting.
Although FOX News isn’t concerned with viewership, *my suggestion as a journalist* is to clarify what exactly they are reporting on, if they want the other 84% of America to respect them as a legitimate news source. Specify if a story is an opinion to avoid confusing viewers who don’t know otherwise. Use facts and data to back those opinions and give them meaning, instead of just saying opinions with no evidence.
Poynter provides this graphic to explain the difference between opinion pieces and news stories. It is a simple explanation that could be used by both news consumers to better understand the difference, as well as by journalists to gauge what their reporting is considered.
Looking for a new, unbiased news source? Check out NPR, Associated Press, Reuters, USA Today, or the Wall Street Journal for factual, trustworthy and articulate news and opinion news.
