The Hostile Media Phenomenon Summary

The United States of America is one of the only country’s on earth that has the right for freedom of press enshrined in its constitution (U.S. Const. amend. I). If you take a second to stop and think about that, we are one of the only countries who have truly ‘guaranteed media freedom’, that is something very special as well as something that is paramount to maintaining a functioning democratic society. It seems as if we almost take for granted the myriad of different sources and outlets that we can pull from and learn from. In this writing I will present you with two different ideologies that weigh in on the media system in America today, one from a liberal’s point of view and one from a conservatives point of view.
Fist let me iterate my position that I think each source of news media will have some level of bias in it, whether it be
In “The Hostile Media Phenomenon” by Vallone, Ross, and Lepper there is a section dedicated to the perception of bias. They wrote about a study conducted about Pro-Israelis and Pro-Arabs and whether or not they perceived news segments as biased, and sure enough each side was blaming the other side for being biased against them (Vallone, 1985). Now I as an individual take the side of my Grandmother, one that acknowledges that there are biases among many media sources and that we all must be aware of it. But I don’t think it is a wise choice to ignore those with dissenting opinions. This brings me to another point made by Marie, she is a very compassionate person and is very sensitive to negative speech and rhetoric. She made her stance on media bias in my interview by saying “Yes, I think our media - MSNBC in liberal direction and FOX in conservative - are bias”. She also stated that there are very polarizing reporters in both sides of the media’s political spectrum such as Rachel Maddow being liberal and Glen Beck being