Last Fall I spoke at a couple of Campaign Life Coalition regional conferences about the sources of media bias as it affects the abortion issue. Last month, The Interim reprinted that speech. The most important insight is that not all bias is ideological; sometimes reporters are just bad at doing their job and I identify the main reason for this problem is the fact many journalists are ignorant and lazy.
Here’s a snippet:
Many journalists are dumb and lazy. This is not said as a criticism, merely an observation.
Many journalists are incurious. They fancy themselves intellectuals, but they seldom want to delve too deeply into a topic. Many will say they are writing where their audience is, but newspaper readers are by definition not the average person. They can handle some intellectual heavy-lifting; perhaps it is the journalists who can’t.
Journalists are lazy. They follow the herd. Once a topic has been framed, that is the way the topic will continue to be covered.
