The facts of the Catalan referendum (which you can read in our Raw Data) provide a specific, precise depiction of the violence and conflict that occurred during the vote. And while this information came from the articles we analyzed, the outlets went beyond facts and used language that may provoke excitement, fear or anger amongst readers, potentially at the expense of accuracy. This is the definition of sensationalism, and it can influence readers’ thoughts, feelings or opinions about a subject.
To demonstrate this, consider the following excerpts from the articles. Sensational, subjective or vague language (spin) is bolded. When researching the media’s coverage of Tom Price’s resignation, it was hard to distinguish between news articles and opinion pieces strictly by their content. So we pulled together and compared two news articles from some of the most prominent news outlets in the country against two that were marked as op-eds or analyses. The real revelation came with our ratings, which showed both news articles’ scores were within 2 and 4 points of the analysis piece, in terms of overall integrity (the op-ed scored lower). One of the news articles also scored the highest spin rating overall, and the two news articles were more biased than the two opinion pieces! |
Jens Erik GouldJens is a political, business and entertainment writer and editor who has reported from a dozen countries for media outlets including The New York Times, National Public Radio and Bloomberg News Archives
February 2018
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