Law Enforcement Frenemies – a Look into the Media Bias of Violence in America

Law Enforcement Frenemies – A look into the media bias of Violence in America

Its 6am and the morning paper hits your garage door making an echo through your house that reminds you it’s time to get up. You roll out of bed and levitate to the fresh small of coffee coming from the kitchen. Starting breakfast, you step outside to grab the newspaper and throw it on the kitchen counter when the front page grabs your attention: Innocent man gunned down and shot multiple times by police officer. “The government is becoming more corrupt by the day” you think to yourself. You look over at the clock and feel your heart jump as you remember you are presenting a new project to your director in 20 minutes. You top off your coffee, grab the bagel from the toaster and jump in the car. Your favorite news station is still playing from your drive home from work yesterday. You can’t hear much but turn it up when you hear mention of an assault on a local police officer right down the street from your house.  “A 25 year old homeless man brutally assaulted a police officer after the police officer allegedly approached him with flyers for local shelters. The unnamed male then pulled out what appeared to be a gun. In defense, the officer responded by firing off two rounds to wound the man in self-defense which later that night ended in the demise of the homeless male,” says the news reporter. “That can’t be the same incident I read in the newspaper this morning” you say out loud.

Fact of the matter is. That is the same story presented by two very different sources. This is what is known as Media Bias. Wise Geek defines Media Bias as “a perceived notion that the press has and is pushing a specific viewpoint, instead of reporting news or airing programs in an objective way. Such bias often refers to media as a whole, such as a newspaper chain, or a given television or radio network, instead of individual reporters or writers of television shows.” In this paper I will discuss the media bias of two articles addressing the same event with two completely different points of view. The first article was written by Vox News, Chart Shows Why Prosecution Over Freddie Grays Death is so Remarkable; and the second article was written by Fox news, Baltimore prosecutor charges police with murder, manslaughter in death of Freddie Gray. Through this paper I will use five different types of Media Bias indicators to expose the premeditated agenda behind Vox and Fox news regarding Violence in America through a single event.

The first type of bias to address is known as “bias by omission”. Student daily news defines bias by omission as “ leaving one side out of an article, or a series of articles over a period of time; ignoring facts that tend to disprove liberal or conservative claims, or that support liberal or conservative beliefs.” Reading through both of the articles, one key element of the event that was left out by Vox News was the cause of death. In contrary, while Fox news states the cause of death in the opening sentence, “suffered a broken neck last month when he was left shackled at the feet and lying face down in a police van by officers who ignored his pleas as they made their rounds.” So why would Vox news leave such a crucial detail from there report? Well, let’s highlight what the cause of death is, “a broken neck.”  The idea of a broken neck tends to trigger images of violence. The thought of a police officer breaking a victim’s next will imply to the reader that the act was malicious. Leaving out this detail allows the ready to speculate the cause of death and dispute the events intent. By leaving out details, a media source can help to sway a reader’s opinion of the event.

Next form of bias to discuss is “bias by selection of sources”. Media sources use this type of bias to persuade readers and viewers by using phrases such as “experts believe” or “observers say.” These phases are just that, phrases. These so called “experts” and “observers” have no more influence over the event then then the average Joe. When the general public hears expert or observer, they tend to feel that this person has augmented knowledge of the topic they address.  In the fox news article, a statement is captured from, “…Mosby, who said she comes from five generations of law enforcement and has been on the job for four months. Her husband is Baltimore City Councilman Nick Mosby, who has spoken out about the riots and anger in the city's African-American community”.  This person referred to as “Mosby” has no direct correlation to the event itself but by Fox news outlining the background of the individual, causes the reader to believe that the individual is an expert in the matter and the reader should feel comfortable in believing the statement.

The third form of media bias to  speak to is called, “bias by story selection.” This form of bias is used within articles to highlight stories or studies that coincide with the articles opinion while ignoring those that differ from the articles agenda. This is perhaps the most defined form of bias used between the two articles in discussion. The Vox news article highlights a study that compares the number of Maryland police involved killings to number of charged conviction of those events.

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This bar chart implies that less than 2% of total police shootings end in a conviction against the charged officer. This chart also highlights the number of instances the victim was black and the number of times the victim was armed. The article strategically chose to highlight this study as it focuses on a very small population that favors the bias of the article. What the article does not do is show studies that contradict the articles agenda such as a recent study published by BBC, Cases Where US Police Have Faced Killing Charges. This study by BBC reflects that globally the number of convictions against tried officers has nearly tripled in the last ten years.

        The next form of bias focuses on the structure or placement of an article. This type of bias, known as “bias by placement”, can be prepared through the naming convention of an article or by placing an article in a location more or less visible to the reader. Student news claims “Studies have shown that, in the case of the average newspaper reader and the average news story, most people read only the headline”. When comparing the names of the two articles in discussion, at first glance many would wonder the correlation between the two articles. Fox news takes a clear and bold approach with an article that is top and center of the website. Large bold letters run across the screen, Baltimore prosecutor charges police with murder, manslaughter in death of Freddie Gray. Three heavy words roll off the tip of your tongue, murder, manslaughter and death. Using words such as these in a headline is begging for attention. Vox News takes quite the opposite approach with a weak headline stating, This chart shows why the prosecution over Freddie Gray's death is so remarkable. This headline hardly screams, “read me!” They even offset the word death with remarkable. As you would suspect, this article was found towards the bottom of the page along with the petty crime and political articles. Bias by placement is the first form of bias a reader will see. Just by a reader seeing an article in a less visible area can cause the reader to feel the topic is less important or invalid.