Bias in Factual writing

Should bias be involved in factual writing?

In this essay I will talk about being bias and whether or not it affects factual writing. I will also talk about whether a bias opinion should be involved in factual writing at all. I am going to state my own opinion and then write the good and bad points about biasness.

I personally believe that being bias can be good and bad, there are circumstances where there are no effects from a bias piece of media. If a scientist specialises in marine biology and he is writing an article about destruction of habits you would expect them to have a bias opinion against pollution and fossil fuels depending on what the article is about. You would want his bias opinion because that is what he specialises in and that is what he’s devoted his life to. You would also expect that he would know what he was talking about if it’s his profession. It’s down to you to take or leave what you want from the hypothetical article. His bias opinion will be based on facts that he has learned himself from his chosen bias source.

I don’t think biasness should be involved in factual media if there is no basis or reason for it. A situation where this could be the case is an article about a natural disaster in another country. If you hear about a natural disaster you only want to hear about what has happened based on facts. You don’t want to hear the reporter’s opinion on the culture of that country or any negative views they may have. There are situations where no opinion need be involved, regardless of whether its bias or not.

The difficult thing with biasness is the fact that everybody is bias to some extent. Your biasness is what makes you, you and it shapes your opinions. If you are bias towards something you tend to agree with it. If you are bias against something you tend not to agree with it. This can mean that you will discard certain pieces of media based on their source. This is how it is with every single person, this is why biasness is not something you can regulate. An example of this would be reading certain newspapers. If you are more right winged you may tend to read newspapers like ‘the daily mail’ this is because they generally support conservative views. If you are more left wing then you might not agree with anything ‘The daily mail’ has to say. The ‘Guardian’ is seen as a more left wing newspaper because of the views that it supports. The way in which people approach either of these magazines is a perfect example of why biasness can be a bad thing. This is because both parties’ will be more likely to discard things if it’s in a newspaper they don’t agree with. An intelligent person always finds both sides to a story so it’s not just down to bias opinions, it can also be down to peoples ignorance and the want to believe everything they hear.

My opinion towards biasness is that it should be allowed in media and factual writing when it’s necessary. If you stop bias opinions being allowed in media and factual writing then you are essentially censoring things that people have to say. Without bias opinions all fact based news stories would be the same. They would

all be sterile and tell you similar things whilst all trying to avoid being bias towards something. Biasness is something that is unavoidable and realistically no one would or could live without. There is the argument that if it’s factual it doesn’t need a bias opinion it just needs facts and figures, but that’s just not true. If you want any sort of feel or depth to a piece of writing you need an opinion. A bias opinion can be good because you can contrast your opinion against it based on the knowledge you have yourself. If there are two factual news articles in two separate newspapers you may want to hear the different opinions from each side of the fence.

To conclude I personally believe that it’s down to the person themselves to decipher the opinions from the facts. People might be affected by bias opinions subconsciously but there are always contrasting opinions to find out so then you can build your own opinion. If you read one piece of information and it’s not from a totally reliable source, why would you believe it straight away? It’s down to you to shape the media you want to read or watch. If people want to believe everything they read aimlessly, so be it, but I don’t think the media should have to compromise for the general population’s stupidity.