Bias

Journalists covering news in countries where freedom of the press is legally protected are expected to report on a range of issues with clarity, comprehensiveness, accuracy, and a balance of quoted viewpoints. A news story is expected to be free of the reporter’s own overt opinions—to be objective. When a news story is judged less than comprehensive, accurate, or objective, the story might be interpreted as biased. Bias is an allegation usually reserved only for news journalists whose professional expectation is to quote others but to keep their own viewpoints out of the story, because of the long-standing cultural expectation of journalistic fairness, viewpoint balance, accuracy, and objectivity.

This entry provides an overview of different notions about news-media bias, the ways it has been formally studied, ...