Everyone has a bias, and an agenda; don’t kid yourself
Lately I’ve heard a number of political pundits quote FactCheck.org, as if it were the authoritative answer. I’ve been troubled by that, because I learned years ago that everyone has a bias, and everyone has an agenda.
Everyone. Including me.
I heard Phil Hendrie quote the site the other night, and he seemed to believe if it appeared on FactCheck.org, it was absolute. He should know better than that, because he knows what a pile Wikipedia is. He’s talked about it often.
Now Michelle Malkin has seen it with her own eyes: FactCheck.org is just another media source that portrays itself as the end-all unbiased place to get the truth. Patterico has the entire detailed analysis here. I’m sorry their bubbles had to burst in such an unpleasant way, but it just emphasizes that there’s a person (or persons) behind every article, every blog report, every unbiased news story. And every person has an agenda and some sort of bias.
I suspect that a large segment of the population believes if something is in a scientific journal (ooooh, especially one that is peer reviewed - the holy grail), it’s absolute black and white truth.
Wrong.
Even something that is touted as absolute, science, is subject to interpretation, how data is manipulated and analyzed, even how a study is set up and organized. There are people behind the scenes, and once again, if there’s a person, there is bias.
I deal with electroshock research which is incredibly biased. But for those not into medical research issues, look at global warming science. It’s not black and white at all, and scientists on all sides of the issue can make their case. The individual just chooses which scientists to believe, based on his/her own biases.
Apply that to medical research, and it’s the same.
A friend who is a researcher and publishes in those medical journals has laughed with me a number of times over what bullshit it sometimes can be. (There *is* good quality research out there, but there is also bad, and it’s difficult for the average person or even a medical journalist to grasp the difference.)
All it takes is to get a sentence in print in one of the medical journals, and it becomes black and white, the absolute truth. It’s in a journal. The media can quote it, I can quote it, anyone can quote it, and it’s hard to question it. After all, it was in a medical journal.
So whether it’s FactCheck.org, Wikipedia, The New England Journal of Medicine, MediaMatters or any other purported “authoritative unbiased source,” you should always keep an eyebrow cocked, and keep your speedometer pointed to skeptical.
It’s a hard lesson to learn, and unfortunately it’s not taught in journalism school. The only thing that IS black and white is that everyone has a point of view. Usually, the more they screech they’re unbiased, the more likely they do.
I call that Juli’s Law of Bias: the louder they squawk there is none, the more bias there is behind the curtain.
