By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
FEB. 19, 2019 | It’s not always easy to be fair.
Sometimes in attempting to be fair, you are skewing the process, and before you realize it, you are either being not fair, or over-fair.
Some media go to great lengths to try to be fair. If an issue is raised, they seek to find the viewpoints of both sides of the question.
But sometimes, that becomes unreasonable, and overly fair to the weaker side.
Let’s say that 75 percent of the people favor an issue. If the media seek to give one viewpoint in favor of that issue, and the other viewpoint condemning that issue, that’s grossly unfair. The people favor the issue 3:1, but the media coverage makes that issue 1:1.
In this case, “being fair” can easily skew the question.
You can see that in the daily Atlanta newspaper’s coverage of Letters to the Editor. On days when there is even an opinion page (five out of seven days), they usually have two letters, one for, the other against, any issue. Everything isn’t 50/50. We suspect the people of Metro Atlanta are not that easily divided on most issues. So being “fair to both sides” obviously isn’t fair.
What if the AJC got in letters to the editor leaning 90 percent one way? Should nine out of ten letters be printed showing that division? Obviously, the newspaper doesn’t have room for that many questions. It might help occasionally to devote a whole page to a single issue, and let the ratio of letters on that issue be reflected by the number printed on each side.
Where all this “fairness” came from is because of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). At one time, the FCC required broadcast stations to present “both sides” of issue, or if not, their broadcast licenses could be in jeopardy. Somehow, eventually that translated that newspapers (or any other media) should be fair, and that has skewed the question since. Remember many newspapers were founded to be partisan and one-sided, shown in the Kankakee Republican, or Arkansas Democrat and others.
So today, with that thinking, you see the so-called “fairness doctrine” introduced into all kind of issues. Many times the mere introduction of presenting both sides sends the report into unfairness.
You can transfer the fairness question as the AJC sought to present another viewpoint in the upcoming referendum in Gwinnett about rapid transit. The vote is set for March 16.
How will the vote go? We think that enough people have moved into Gwinnett since the last MARTA vote (1991) and that these days most people favor rapid transit. Many of those people have moved from areas where there is ample rapid transit, and cannot understand why Gwinnett hasn’t already gone that route.
We could be wrong. That’s why votes are held on major questions like this. Though we suspect there is a minority against using a one cent sales tax to support rapid transit in Gwinnett, we’ll have to wait until March 16 to find out.
But you must wonder: will the very effort to find some people against funding rapid transit with a one cent sales tax cause the news coverage to be skewed?
It’s another case of the difficulty that news media finds itself in when trying to be fair.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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