Errors and Omissions

I'm OK, You're Biased

I've been thinking about this article, "I'm OK, You're Biased," from the Times a couple of weeks back. Here are a couple of interesting excerpts:

Research suggests that decision-makers don't realize just how easily and often their objectivity is compromised. The human brain knows many tricks that allow it to consider evidence, weigh facts and still reach precisely the conclusion it favors....

...And yet, if decision-makers are more biased than they realize, they are less biased than the rest of us suspect. Research shows that while people underestimate the influence of self-interest on their own judgments and decisions, they overestimate its influence on others.

What I've been thinking about is how to apply this thinking to bias in the press. It would imply that reporters' objectivity is compromised more easily than they realize, and that readers overestimate how this bias affects what they read every day.

Sounds like a pretty fair appraisal of the modern press, to my ears.

Objectivity, Bias, New York Times

posted by Unknown @ 5/05/2006 09:05:00 AM