The first article I will cover is titled “Despair in Russia as Putin Spirals Out of Control”. From the title alone you can tell that any information that the article will provide will be biased in hopes to make their readers see Putin the way they see him. This was an article posted by The Daily Beast and is deemed by the site Allsides as hard left. The article is mainly about how The Kremlins have declared war on Russia and the United States, the declaration having a huge impact on Russian citizen’s morale and a bigger impact on the increase in poverty in Russia. The writer deliberately uses harsh words such as raging, tsunami, and plunging. A line of the article goes “The demand for psychological help is already like a tsunami in Russia, especially among citizens with alcohol dependency, which has increased by 85 percent this year, Moscow’s Kommersant newspaper reported this week.” The article uses a Horns Effect (A bias that causes a negative impression of someone by focusing on the negative). The article continues about the awful things Putin is doing and holding him accountable for everything wrong in Russia. “We have lost the ability to live like humans because of Putin’s aggression. We cannot go to school, they bomb us every single day,” Artur, 15, told The Daily Beast.” They use personal stories to help depict Putin as an evil ruler who doesn’t care for his people, reinforcing the Horn Effect.
The second story that’s being covered is titled “New Study Links COVID-19 Vaccine to Possible Health Issues. This article is considered to be unbiased so it’s neither left nor right. However, the article is biased because all their research and data come from one source instead of using multiple studies. Although it says “The new study, published in Vaccine, is the largest study of its kind since the pandemic began and could reignite the debate over the risks and benefits of the vaccine”. The bias can be excused seeing how it is the most reliable one due to how large the study is. When it comes to science a study is reliable only if it can be replicated and give the same result. Seeing how it is a large study one can only assume they are repeating their findings.
The last story being mentioned is an article titled “Swiss Billonaire’s Nonprofit Sent $35 Million to Dark Money Group Propping Up Dems”. The article speaks on Billionaire Hansjorg Wyss giving a lot of money to a Democrat-aligned dark money group. The group Wyss gave the money to is a group called Sixteen Thirty Fund an organization that focuses on empowering new ideas and funding new people and leaders to achieve meaningful solutions to difficult challenges. This article just like The Daily Beast is using a Horns Effect (A bias that causes a negative impression of someone by focusing on the negative). They try to make this group and the billionaire seem like awful people by saying “Wyss, a Swiss billionaire who made his fortune selling medical devices, had not disclosed publicly whether he is a United States citizen as of 2021, The New York Times reported.” They also try to prove that the organization is dark (sinful, immoral, wrong) by saying that because they don’t publicly say who they are donating too they are evil and wrong. The article uses words like ‘Liberals’ and ‘foreign’.
One thought on “Pamela Benitez, Conversation 3: Bias”
Hi Pamela, I actually liked your writing because of how clear and understanding it is. You shared the different bias and explained thoroughly how it was a bias through the different word choice. Overall, I thought you gave a good explanation.