>This is not true for the journalist who reports international events and affairs - these are based on much simpler facts such as "which government decided what" and "which spokesperson of some organisation said what when".
People often divide news content into two spheres: Facts and opinion (e.g. editorial). News articles are believed to be facts, and then they separately have opinions and editorials. The common advice is to be wary of the latter.
In my experience, though, the news is really divided into three spheres: Facts, opinions, and context. You'll find that almost every news article contains both facts and context. The context portion of the article is there to tell you why all this matters. Contextual statements are also facts, but they do not involve the immediate events. It is in the choice of which contextual facts are included in the article that bias creeps in.
As a simple exam, in 2003 Michael Jackson was charged with child molesting. I recall almost all the articles I read mentioned in the end that he had been similarly accused in 1991. Yet none of those articles mentioned the details and outcome of that investigation.
With international affairs, once you've studied a topic for long enough, you'll quickly become aware of the contextual biases, and you'll want to scream at the authors for omitting what you think are very relevant contextual facts.
People often divide news content into two spheres: Facts and opinion (e.g. editorial). News articles are believed to be facts, and then they separately have opinions and editorials. The common advice is to be wary of the latter.
In my experience, though, the news is really divided into three spheres: Facts, opinions, and context. You'll find that almost every news article contains both facts and context. The context portion of the article is there to tell you why all this matters. Contextual statements are also facts, but they do not involve the immediate events. It is in the choice of which contextual facts are included in the article that bias creeps in.
As a simple exam, in 2003 Michael Jackson was charged with child molesting. I recall almost all the articles I read mentioned in the end that he had been similarly accused in 1991. Yet none of those articles mentioned the details and outcome of that investigation.
With international affairs, once you've studied a topic for long enough, you'll quickly become aware of the contextual biases, and you'll want to scream at the authors for omitting what you think are very relevant contextual facts.