Milkshake Duck: A look at the merits and pitfalls of cable TV news
Staying informed about current events can be exhausting.
Not only do you have to deal with a barrage of negativity and tragedy, but you're also responsible for sifting through the thousands of news sources to find a story you can trust about each topic. How is that even possible?
It's no wonder so many people just give up.
But, what about cable TV news like CNN or Fox? In just 15 minutes, at almost any time of day, you can turn on the TV and get important highlights about current events. Similarly, a quick skim of one of the cable news station's websites will get you caught up. Sure, it can be negative or seem angry, but at least you're up-to-date on current events, right?
At first, these media organizations seem to be providing a service, giving us the news and making our lives better - more informed. They make it easy to keep up, without us having to do much or any work besides turning on the TV.
According to Urban Dictionary, Milkshake Duck (an internet term coined in Twitter) is "Someone who gains sudden fame for something nice and positive, only to soon after being revealed as a deeply flawed character with terrible opinions and/or a shady past, often involving corrosive social/political ideologies, which quickly tarnishes their fame and the good will people momentarily had towards them."
As an experienced journalist and social justice-focused person, verifiable facts are important to me. When I say verifiable, I mean that the information comes from a credible source, and can be cross-checked with other credible sources for accuracy. And what is a credible source? It's usually a paper trail, or unedited video footage, or numerical data from rigorous experiment that is interpreted by a scientific expert, or an organization with a track record of evidence-based information. The common denominator that makes a credible source, is evidence.
So, for example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (an international United Nations collaboration between expert scientists and exhaustive evidence and data) is a credible source for information on climate change. Your uncle Bill with a degree in engineering and a drinking problem is not.
That brings us back to cable TV news. Channels like Fox and CNN are owned by entertainment companies - not news organizations - and are controlled by corporate interests. These entertainment companies have strict policies for what kind of stories can be broadcast and written, what tone can be used, and which opinions can be shown. No real journalism or news organization would be caught dead with those types of rules.
Let me say that again, because it's important: No real journalism or news organization would be caught dead with rules that are meant to manipulate viewers' perceptions of the truth.
These cable TV news channels are owned by entertainment companies, whose owners have private interests that influence what they allow to be broadcast. These channels are not news, they are entertainment-masking-as-news, and that should scare us. People really believe in cable news - they trust it. And who can blame them? On the surface, these channels are doing a public service, making news easy to get and providing opinions for us to agree with.
But there lies another clue - real journalism is meant to present facts and evidence, and let the reader draw their own conclusions and opinions about it. In contrast, you can't watch 30 seconds of cable TV news without being bombarded with opinions and a manipulative presentation of the facts. Sometimes related information is omitted, other times false claims are inserted, both with the goal of manipulating the viewer's beliefs and opinions toward the interest of whatever corporate or political bias runs the show.
"Everyone has a bias, we can't avoid it, so why try?"
Fair point, but there are two main types of bias: institutional corporate and political bias (what I'm talking about here), and personal bias.
When we talk about bias in journalism, I think most people are thinking of personal bias. "John believes in climate change so he shouldn't write a story about climate change, because he's biased."
Well, bias isn't always bad. If someone is biased toward wherever the evidence leads them, this is a good bias. If the green berries made two people sick, I'm going to have bias against eating those berries, and for good reason. The difference between real journalism, and entertainment-masking-as-news, is that ideally at a real news organization, it wouldn't matter what the reporter believes, because only evidence-based facts should end up in the story.
If Matt doesn't believe in climate change, he then has a bias against it and shouldn't write the story, right? Wrong. If Matt works at a news organization with rigorous journalistic standards, fact-checkers, and editors, it won't matter what he believes, because only evidence-based facts should make it through to the final story.
Is this ideal perfect in real life? No, of course nothing is perfect. But luckily, it's relatively easy to spot personal bias. For example, you've probably figured out by now that I believe in climate change. Maybe it was me calling your drunk engineer uncle a bad climate change source, or maybe it was me using climate change as an example of a positive bias, since it's fact-based.
I've followed the evidence, I'm a physicist and atmospheric scientist who has studied climate change evidence in-depth, and I believe in climate change along with 98% of scientific consensus. I am bias toward the evidence. So you see, it's easy to recognize personal bias.
The thing is, when faulty personal bias get's through into a story, it's easy to spot because it's not presented with verifiable evidence. Always make sure claims are supported by evidence. A trustworthy news organization will always, ALWAYS cite sources in-text with the name of the expert or a link to the original evidence, or both.
What is much more dangerous is when corporate and political interests make rules to limit a journalist's ability to tell the truth. These rules that dictate tone, opinion, and fact omission, are meant to be hidden from the public and can be nearly impossible to spot.
You may say "well John from the newspaper is bias toward climate change, he has opinions, so why can't Fox news?" Well, John may have opinions, but wrong or right, he is not a powerful political interest trying to sway more than half of the population in favor of his own corporate profit. At least John (believes in climate change) who works at National Public Radio, and Matt (doesn't believe in climate change) who works for the local newspaper, have the chance to follow the facts wherever they lead.
Whereas Amy at Fox news has to use the phrase "climate change conspiracy" any time she wants to mention climate change, and Frank over at CNN has to use the term "climate change catastrophe" whenever he mentions it. They CAN'T follow the evidence, wherever it leads. They have a strict list of interview subjects they're allowed to call, and they signed a corporate policy about their tone regarding this topic and many others. This is not journalism, this is not news, this is dangerous.
Examples of institutional political and corporate bias:
-organizational rules that limit journalist’s freedom to share facts
-organizational rules that limit or dictate the tone a journalist must write about certain topics
-organizational responsibility to a certain financial or political agenda
Examples of personal bias are:
-emotional response to stories
-personal political opinions
Cable TV, political talk radio, and sensationalized online media are only there for profit - either for ad revenue, or to sway national opinion in favor of their own personal profit. These are actively working against your best interest.
If a journalist who works for independent or small-town news has personal bias, journalism standards and AP style teach a writing style where only facts should come through. There are rules for providing a breadth of information, and that each fact presented must be fact-checked by other people. No news article from a reputable source is published before going through several rounds of editing from other writers, editors, and fact-checkers, with different opinions, whose only common goal is to publish plain facts, which allow the reader to draw their own conclusions.
Can personal bias ruin a story? Sure. But there are many many safeguards built into good journalistic practice, which is why my tips for recognizing good journalism in my previous article are important. If you can narrow down your news to the most journalistically sound reporting, you are minimizing personal bias.
Can institutional and corporate bias block the truth? Yes, and that is absolutely the point - to twist current events in favor of corporate or political interests. That is why cable TV entertainment-masking-as-news is dangerous, and why independent news sources like public media are so vital.
Easy-to-access cable TV news might have seemed positive and helpful at first, but upon closer inspection, it is revealed as deeply flawed and often involving corrosive social/political ideologies. In other words, we have ourselves a milkshake duck.