Summary
Contents
The SAGE Key Concepts series provide students with accessible and authoritative knowledge of the essential topics in a variety of disciplines. Cross-referenced throughout, the format encourages critical evaluation through understanding. Written by experienced and respected academics, the books are indispensable study aids and guides to comprehension. Key Concepts in Journalism offers a systematic and accessible introduction to the terms, processes, and effects of journalism;a combination of practical considerations with theoretical issues; and further reading suggestions. The authors bring an enormous range of experience in newspaper and broadcast journalism, at national and regional level, as well as their teaching expertise. This book will be essential reading for students in journalism, and an invaluable reference tool for their professional careers.
Bias
Bias
‘Pure bias’ was NUM leader Arthur Scargill's description of television news bulletin's coverage of the 1984 miners' strike (Guardian, 28 August 1984, cited in Harrison, 1985, Introduction). Scargill's certainty in recognizing and denouncing media bias is typical of the term's more frequent usage in popular and public, rather than academic, discussions of the alleged distortions and misrepresentations in media content; especially news and current affairs.
The notion of bias is significant and enjoys affinities with the cognate concepts of objectivity, impartiality, balance and truth, but there is no reference to bias in the BBC's Producers' Guidelines which set out the ‘editorial and ethical principles that drive the BBC’ (BBC, 1994, Introduction). But in everyday use, bias implies that the ‘real world’ constitutes an objective reality ...