[WikiEN-l] Undue weight

[gwern0 at gmail.com]

Reading this article, for some reason kept bringing to my mind the WPism of 'undue weight' [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources and undue weight]]:

"Why Apple fans hate tech reporters: On hot-button issues -- the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the Mac-PC divide -- we're quick to see bias in even the most objective news." <http://machinist.salon.com/feature/2008/03/18/true_enough_excerpt_2/index.html>

"The researchers showed the students six news segments covering the massacre; the clips were collected from national evening news programs, and were intended, in the way that network news is, to be mainstream, non-partisan depictions of the events in Lebanon. The participants were asked to rate the programs in several ways, all covering the same basic point: how fairly had the networks presented the case of Sabra and Shatila?

People who were neutral on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- presumably those from the psych classes -- came down somewhere in the middle. They didn't think the news clips supported either party in the conflict. But proponents of each side saw it differently.

Pro-Palestinian viewers said the news clips excused "Israel when they would have blamed some other country"; that the news accounts didn't focus enough on Israel's role in the massacre; that the segments would prompt neutral observers to take Israel's side; and that the journalists who'd put together the stories were probably advocates of Israel. Israel's supporters, meanwhile, said the exact opposite.

On issues we're passionate about, we all tend to think our own views are essentially reasonable, Ross explains. Thus when a reporter, editor, news network, or pundit mentions the other side's arguments, it stings."
....
"But for people who feel strongly about an issue -- for Apple fanatics, for abortion partisans, for folks who think they know the truth about global warming or what's going on in the Middle East -- personal views feel distinct and luminous. Journalistic "objectivity" inevitably produces a muddier picture.

When they come upon that difference -- the gulf between what's in their heads and what's on the page -- the audience tends to assume the worst: The reporter must be licking someone's balls."


--
gwern
World IWIS Terrorism EO chameleon Bubba r00t Z-150T W3 MOD
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