Media Blows Debt Crisis Coverage With Balance Bias

The idea that both sides in any given political fight are equal and deserve equal consideration is skewing the mainstream media's coverage of the debt ceiling fight.

Balance Bias (bal-ance bi-as)

1. The assumption that there is truth and legitimacy to both sides of every dispute.

2. The iron law in political journalism that one side in a debate can never be exclusively right, or have a monopoly on the facts.

 

This increasingly disorderly fight over raising the debt ceiling has not only exposed the petty dysfunctions of the US Congress, it has also revealed a core failure of American political journalism. The press has made the debt fight the top story for the last two weeks —even accounting for half of all stories on radio and cable news—but much of the coverage has failed to tell the very basics of what is happening.

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