Fox News Exposes Hidden Bias Of CBS News

Fake news has been a hot topic this year. What the term actually means is different to different people, but a recent puff piece on Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray by CBS News falls into that category.

While the piece was not fake in the sense that CBS made up fake information, it was an egregious example of the liberal bias that is prevalent in the mainstream media. Howard Kurtz of Fox News pointed out the shoddy reporting on Fox’s “MediaBuzz” program on Sunday.

In the CBS piece, correspondent Erin Moriarty profiled Cordray, the first director of the agency created in 2010 at the urging of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). In the course of the piece, Moriarty interviewed four law professors who defended Cordray and attacked Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and his Financial Choice Act that would limit the power of the CPFB.

CBS did present both sides of the issue. Even though it was very sympathetic to Cordray, who Moriarty says “may be the best friend that the consumer has ever had,” she did interview Hensarling as well. So, what is the problem?

The issue is that the four professors interviewed for the piece, Christopher Peterson, Patricia McCoy, Kathleen Engel, and Adam Levitan, were not just random law professors who happened to be fans of the CPFB. In all four cases, the professors had professional relationships with Cordray and his bureau. The professors had either worked directly for the CPFB or had served on its consumer advisory board. CBS did not disclose these relationships in its report.

While it isn’t improper to interview former employees and associates of Cordray, it is improper to not disclose that they had worked for Cordray’s agency. The CBS report left viewers with the impression that the professors were objective, when it fact they were personally involved in the issue.

The internet version of the CBS report contains an “editor’s note” at the end of the article that says, “Some members of the panel of college professors and consumer advocates featured in this report also have previous work experience with or have served on advisory boards for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.” The video report did not contain a similar disclosure and on the internet version there was no mention of the fact that the relationships were not disclosed in the original report.

The CBS report can be legitimately called fake news on the basis of its hidden bias. Either CBS failed to do due diligence on the background of all four professors or, more likely, the network chose not to disclose their relationships with Cordray. Either way, it was poor reporting of the sort that feeds the public distrust of the media. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

CNBC Editor: 'Viewers Not Stupid As We Think They Are'

There are signs that the media is learning. Nikhil Deogun, senior vice president and editor-in-chief of CNBC, recently discussed confirmation bias and trust in the media with Yahoo! News anchor Katie Couric on a panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival and his thoughts were actually encouraging.

“Consumers are increasingly gravitating toward outlets that basically tell them what they want to hear, reinforce their beliefs,” Couric said, quoted by The Blaze. “A friend of mine said, ‘They’re seeking affirmation, not information.’ So, given that, how do you restore trust in the media writ large if people are so divided about which media outlets are actually fair and accurate?”

“I think sometimes there’s too much of a tendency to interpret a fact to a degree that it goes into opinion,” Deogun said. “And I think part of our job is to — again — remind ourselves that our … readers, viewers, users, are not as ignorant, as stupid as we think they are.”

Deogun continued, “I think part of that is to be more transparent. Part of that is to be more forthcoming about what we know and what we don’t know.”

The injection of opinion into news stories to give a biased slant on the news has long been a criticism of the mainstream media by conservatives. Numerous surveys have shown that the vast majority of reporters identify as liberals and Democrats so when a bias exists it almost exclusively reflects a liberal viewpoint.

Journalists were traditionally taught the “five w’s and one h” for their writing. A good news story answers the basic questions of “Who, What, Why, When, Where and How.” Contrary to the apparent belief of many modern journalists, the “What” is a reference to “What happened?” and not “What people should think.”

Deogun’s statement is an admission that at least some journalists realize that they have gone too far and alienated their customers in the process. While 90 percent of journalists may be liberal, political views of the general population are much more mixed. The majority of the population that is not liberal doesn’t like to be talked down to by liberal journalists, especially when they have to pay for subscriptions to outlets that insult their views and values.

There are encouraging signs that the media is trying to fix its ideological problem. Deogun’s admission that there is too much opinion in news stories and that journalists talk down to their readers and viewers is one such sign. CNN’s firing of three journalists who violated the news site’s standards is another action that conservatives should applaud, rather than using it to attack the network’s credibility.  

Of course, the media still has a long way to go in regaining lost trust and respect. After all, Deogun didn’t say that viewers weren’t stupid, he just said that they are not “as stupid as we think they are.”

Old habits and attitudes die hard. 

Originally published on The Resurgent