Booth distinguishes between reliable and unreliable narrators on the grounds of whether the narrator's speech violates or conforms with general norms and values. Sometimes the narrator's unreliability is made immediately evident to the reader. However, a more dramatic use of an unreliable narrator delays his revelation until near the end of the story. In some cases, the unreliability of the narrator is never entirely revealed. This leaves the reader to wonder if the narrator should be trusted and how his tale should be interpreted.
In our everyday lives, we have come to think of politicians and others as unreliable narrators. However, until recent times, we looked to the media, particularly newspapers and newscasters, as our most reliable narrators of newsworthy events. Not long ago, broadcast journalists such as Edward Murrow and Walter Cronkite were often named as the most trusted men in America for their honesty and integrity in delivering the news. Viewers though of Murrow and Cronkite as trusted members of their families. I cannot think of any parallels to our news reporting today.
The media have become an unreliable narrator.
It is tempting to simply claim that today we live in a more complex world, but Murrow and Cronkite reported reliably on a world at war, McCarthyism, Vietnam, Watergate, and the turbulent 60s and 70s.
Today, we find that journalists and news producers exhibit their biases in fundamental ways by (1) their coverage - when issues are more or less visible in the news they report (2) by gatekeeping - when stores are selected or deselected on ideological grounds, and (3) by their tonality or presentation bias - when coverage is slanted towards or against particular actors or issues. Gatekeeping bias is particularly difficult to identify because it requires us to know the full scope of news from which journalists and editors select the stories to be published. Yet, several studies show that a dominant majority of journalists identify as liberals/Democrats.
In 2014, media communications researcher, Jim A. Kuypers published “Partisan Journalism: A History of Media Bias in the United States.” This 40-year study of the political beliefs and commentary of American journalists found that print and broadcast journalists were considerably to the political left of the majority of Americans and that these political beliefs were reflected in their news stories. The web site www.allsides.com offers media bias ratings for over 800 sources on a scale of Left, Lean Left, Center, Lean Right, Right, and Mixed. For the interested reader, The Miami Herald is rated Lean Left by this outfit, but I could not find an independent rating for El Nuevo Herald.
According to a 2017 Gallup poll, our perceptions of news media bias, have increased significantly over the past generation. In 1958, 58 percent of Americans believed that the news media carefully separated fact from opinion. The recent poll data reveals that only 32 percent now hold that opinion. Moreover, whereas in the past 42 percent thought that most news media do not do a good job letting people know what fact is and what is opinion, this view is now up to 66 percent. On a partisan basis the poll shows that 64 percent of Americans believe the media favors the Democratic Party, and only 22 percent said that the media favors the Republican Party.
These findings are troubling because unbiased media coverage is vital for a healthy democracy. Democracy relies on a well-informed citizenry. The media needs to regain its role as a reliable narrator. Opinion writers are not exempt. Even withing these opinion pages, we have a responsibility to be reliable narrators by making our biases clear to the reader and grounding our opinions. I will try my best.
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