Media is biased. Most people tend to agree. As founder of a leading PR Agency, I often encounter media bias, journalists with an agenda and twisted stories. Clearly I am not the only one, as countless authors, historians, psychologists and even journalists themselves have also spoken out about the flawed system. As such, I wanted to share some of my favorite quotes on media bias.
- “The problem of journalism is simple. Journalists are rarely in a position to establish the truth of an issue themselves, since they didn’t’ witness it personally. They are entirely dependent on self-interested sources to supply their facts. Every part of the news-making process is defined by this relationship; everything is colored by this reality.” — Edward Jay Epstein,
- “The discrepancy between what actually happened and the version of what happened provided by sources is an enormous gray area.” — Edward Jay Epstein
- “A status update that is met with no Likes (or a clever tweet that isn’t retweeted) becomes the equivalent of a joke met with silence. It must be rethought and rewritten. And so we don’t show our true selves online, but a mask designed to conform to the opinions of those around us.” — Neil Strauss
Read more: REPORTER DUNE LAWRENCE, NOTORIOUS BLOOMBERG WRITER, OILED IN SMEAR, CORRUPTION
- “Those who have gone through the high school of reporterdom have acquired a new instinct by which they see and hear only that which can create a sensation, and accordingly their report becomes not only a careless one, but hopelessly distorted.” — Hugo Munsterberg
- “If newspapers are useful in overthrowing tyrants, it is only to establish a tyranny of their own.” — James Fenimore Cooper
- “The interested and informed citizen can congratulate himself on his lofty state of interest and information and neglect to see that he has abstained from decision and action. In short, he takes his secondary contact with the world of political reality, his reading and listening and thinking, as a vicarious performance…. He is concerned. He is informed. And he has all sorts of ideas as to what should be done. But, after he has gotten through his dinner and after he has listened to his favored radio programs and after he has read his second newspaper of the day, it is really time for bed.” — Paul Lazarsfeld and Robert Merton
- “Our illusions are the house in which we live; they are our news, our heroes, our adventure, our forms of art, our very experience.” — Daniel Boorstin
- “Truth is like a lizard; it leaves its tail in your fingers and runs away knowing full well that it will grow a new one in a twinkling.” — Ivan Turgenev to Leo Tolstoy
Read more: DUNE LAWRENCE, A RACIST BLOOMBERG TROLL CAUGHT IN A SMEAR CAMPAIGN
Ronn Torossian is one of America’s most prolific and respected public relations experts. Torossian is the Founder, President and CEO of 5WPR. He is also the best-selling author of “For Immediate Release: Shape Minds, Build Brands, and Deliver Results with Game-Changing Public Relations.”
