Five Levels of Bias in Media Interactions

I’ve come up with 5 clear levels of how media is bias toward certain opinions and namely the people that either hold, or they think they hold these opinions and their interactions with them. Many different people anywhere on the vast political spectrum can commit any level many times in their career. If you're seeking out a fair and honest outlet, look for one with no to minimal violations of these types of biases.

Don't be upset if you see any of your favorite pundits on either side of my examples.

Level 1: Plead Ignorance

This level is often used by small media organizations, social media, YouTube and media outlets with low budgets. To save time, effort and thinking power they simply avoid that a contradicting opinion exists. Sometimes for example when discussing climate change, some groups in favor will simply state it’s a proven fact, there’s a scientific consensus, and move on without one word on the large amounts of opposing scientists, evidence and arguments.

EXAMPLE: Michael Moore Assumes Everyone Hates Electoral College

This was a hard one to find a good example that wouldn't be some small YouTube channel. But basically Michael Moore discusses abolishing the Electoral College on The View and calls the electoral college archaic. Never mentioned is the fact that some people believe in the electoral college because it gives states more power (smaller states) in electing a president instead of just leaving it as a big popular majority or mob rule.

To see why the electoral college is needed in a Republic such as the United States watch this video (around 1:20) by Steven Crowder rebutting Adam Conover.

Level 2: The Diss

Perhaps the most commeon, this is where the media organization does not even attempt to interact with the person they’re pointing out and disagreeing with. They are happy to point the blame by assuming the opposing parties arguments and standpoint without actually having them come on their show to clarify firsthand what they believe. Though this is becoming more rare (thankfully) in today’s society with instant communication, worldwide connection and YouTube, it is still very prevalent and more so in the alternative media.

EXAMPLE: David Pakman Dissing Alex Jones

David Pakman frequantly "calls out" Alex Jones and his media platform InfoWars but never attempts to communicate with him. He calls him insults such as "crackpot" as recently as February this year within 10 seconds of the video even.

SEE final 03:20 into video for some specific and subtle disses against Alex and his audience

I know David has been covering his disagreements with Alex Jones for many years and cannot find a single instance of them both talking to each other on either show; if you can find one however, please let me know in the comments.

Here's another example of Pakman clearly not understading where Alex is coming from, assuming he would jump on the conspiracy of Trump working with Russia to get elected if he had just known of it earlier when in reality, Alex Jones does heavy analysis on all this theories making it hard for InfoWars viewers to argue that Alex's conclusions are wrong on specific events.

Blindly dismissing conspiracies just because they sound a little outrageous on the surface is David Pakman's modus operandi, except when it comes to the Russiagate apparently, which is broadcast all over left-wing mainstream media as a fact with no concrete evidence supporting it, it just would make sense for a politician to collude in such a way to get elected to the most powerful position in the world.

Here's another clear diss

Level 3: The Attack

This would be where I can throw Bill O’Reilly as an example. They bring on a guest they disagree with so they can (as opposed to a cordial conversation and agreeing to disagree) refute the guest’s position and act like they’re obviously wrong to think they do, and any sane person would agree with the host’s opinion. They often talk over the guest and not let them finish or thoroughly espouse their side of the debate.

EXAMPLE: Bill O'Reilly vs Kirsten Powers on Racism

On the O'Reilly factor Bill seemed to argue pretty heavily with someone from his own network, seemingly denying that racism is a major issue in America. Though I'm on the fence with this one, now understanding the legacy of Institutional Racism as mentioned in the beginning of Peter Josephs recent book "The New Human Rights Movement", I think Bill did too much talking over Kirsten from the get go to we could not even get her reasoning for believing that racism is still alive in America. He claims also that this guest was making noises over the other woman guest. Even later on he seems to shutoff from even listening to her.

Level 4: The Softballs

As opposed to the attack, this host let’s the guest have a more pleasant experience, may disagree with them or may not bring up their disagreement. But it still leaves room to question who believes what and how they can reconcile their differences. Instead of a real debate to hammer out issues its more like a cocktail or “water cooler conversation.”

EXAMPLE: Liberal Viewer covers Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly interviewing Rick Santorum

Level 5: The Cordial Avoidance

This level entails a show bringing on a guest they agree with on one topic but disagree with strongly on another issue that they avoid on purpose. Usually bringing on the guest is just to bolster their view on a certain topic at a certain time; and the topic they would disagree is not relevant. This level is often used by Alex Jones who I’ll admit welcomes many a guest who are for sure not 100% in agreement with him, but arguments are often avoided.

EXAMPLE: George Noory on the Alex Jones Show doesn't talk about Aliens

George Noory of Coast to Coast AM is known for discussions on aliens yet on the Alex Jones Show in 2012 Alex Jones avoides the alien topic and decides to focus on the coming global apocalypse.

Even this year on Joe Rogan, Alex still avoids the actual alien question (whether he believes or not). Back to George Noory, in fact despite him covering ancient aliens on an entire presentation, when he comes back on Alex Jones in 2015 their topic is The Coming Staged Alien Invasion.

So as not to repeat David Pakman, I will use this as a secondary example; David clearly disagrees with many conspiracy theories Jesse Ventura believes but did not bring them up in this interview. To David's credit he brought up a viewer question about Jesse giving Alex legitimacy but not any specific conspiracy theories that Jesse believes and David clearly does not (like September 11th being an inside job). David continues to have Jesse on, my guess is because Jesse is an independent and doesn't hesitate to put down Republicans just as much as Democrats.

BONUS: Alex Jones & Jesse Venture discuss the 2016 Election & More

Here's Alex Jones talking with Jesse Ventura where they clearly disagree but still get along as they have great respect for one another and do agree on many other topics: