Gone Native

We tried to speak between lines of oration
You could only repeat what we told you
--The Who

Mas Ayoob applauds a reporter for admitting his biases while covering a police shooting story outside of St Louis. Most reporters pretend to be reporting objective news rather than what they are actually doing--i.e., filtering data thru subjective lenses to generate distorted pictures of reality.

In fact, journalists are likely to 'go native' without realizing it. Their biases and narrow ideological networks lead them to believe that they indeed see the world objectively even though they have joined the slant walk.

Possible solutions to the problem, such as expanding personal networks to include people with significantly different views, or disclosing biases such as political affiliations at the beginning of stories proposed to be 'objective news,' seem unlikely.

Responsibility therefore rests with consumers of news to separate fact from fiction.