Breaking the Mold

Tara Moreland- Editor-in-Chief
2/10/12

As the 2012 Presidential election nears and the GOP candidate race narrows down, politics are a topic on the minds of many people in the United States. The increased interest in politics during an election year also seems to bring out the worst in people when it comes to hostility toward those who oppose their views.
In one of my classes this week, I read a research article that focused on a concept called Hostile Media Perception (HMP). The idea behind HMP is that a person who affiliates with a particular political party believes the media reports in favor of the opposite party. For example, a Republican may believe that certain newspapers or radio stations cater to the Democrats in their reporting, therefore causing a hostility toward that particular media outlet, or vice versa.
I am particularly fascinated by this topic because I believe it reveals something interesting about our society: We may be less concerned about informing ourselves through the media and more concerned about the media’s catering to our personal beliefs. This may be, perhaps, the reason that many of us read only certain newspapers or watch certain news networks. It is a common opinion that CNN leans more to the left side of the political spectrum, and Fox News leans more to the right, and that the New York Times is more liberal, and the Washington Times more conservative.
What concerns me about these tendencies, both on the part of the media and on the part of consumers of media, is that we can be ignorant in our politics because we are not fully informing ourselves on the issues of all parties involved.
Rather, we are more interested in the attacking and propaganda that takes place on the part of politicians.
Another quality that HMP reveals is that many of us are likely the kind of people who only vote for our own party, rather than examining the candidates and their policies closely. We are more concerned with our affiliation than with the implications of our votes.
One more facet of this topic is the media’s responsibility to report objectively. The fact that certain news networks, newspapers or radio talk shows are explicitly known for leaning to one side of the political spectrum is bothersome to me. How ethical is it for stations to selectively report in a manner which deliberately makes a certain group look good or bad for the political party with which they are affiliated?
People rely on the media to inform them about what is going on in the world from all perspectives. To do so without injecting their own biases into the information. In fact, the media may be enabling the public in their tendencies to be hostile toward everything that opposes their personal political beliefs.
Last week in the Monitor, the editorial staff wrote a column about reporting responsibly and not just trying to get the juiciest story out the fastest. I think that reporting objectively is another, actually the most important, piece of being an ethical journalist.
As college students, we are still establishing our beliefs, and these will change as we gain experience and learn more in our lives. Many of us have adopted the political attitudes of our parents or those with whom we spent most of our time as young people.
While you begin to consider for whom you are going to vote in this year’s election and as you inform yourself about the candidates and important issues you care about, I implore you to gain your information from a variety of sources, not just those that lean toward your preferences.
I encourage you not to automatically become hostile toward a medium of news just because it reports something good or bad about a candidate or party you prefer. Explore all perspectives. Knowledge is power. Make sure your knowledge is well-rounded and informed.