Lesson 2

Bias
English 11-1
 prejudice in favor of
What is Bias? or against one thing,
person, or group
compared with
another, usually in a
cause to feel or show
way considered to be
inclination
unfair. or
prejudice for or
against someone or
something
 prejudice

Some partiality
synonyms
favoritism
Example: Beauty Bias

It's common to notice other people’s appearances and

associate it with their personality. Unfortunately, many of us
judge others based on their physical attractiveness. This can
manifest in many ways, such as seeing a coworker as
unprofessional because of their choice of clothing or
attributing a stereotype to someone because of their physical
appearance.
 Bias in the
Media

7 Types of Media
Bias
 Media bias is when journalists, news
producers, and news outlets show bias in
Bias by photos, the selection of events and stories as well
as the ways they are reported.
captions and Example:

camera angles Some pictures flatter a person, others

make the person look unpleasant. A paper
can choose photos to influence opinion
about, for example, a candidate for
election. On television, the choice of
which visual images to display is
extremely important. The captions
newspapers run below photos are also
potential sources of bias.
image of shooting victim Michael Brown 
Bias through
placement
Readers of papers judge first page
stories to be more significant than
those buried in the back. Television
and radio newscasts run the most
important stories first and leave the
less significant for later. Where a
story is placed, therefore, influences
what a reader or viewer thinks about
its importance.
• Bias by word choice and
tone (loaded language):

Watch out for words that show

strong judgement. Words such as
evil, crooked, raging---influence
what you think /feel.
Look at how ONE word can make a
difference:
He walked out of the room.
He stomped out of the room.
He snuck out of the room.
He tiptoed out of the room.
Look at these headlines
Mayor Treated Unfairly by Courts

Mayor on Trial for Theft

Greedy Mayor Busted for Theft

 The shark image also went viral
Comments on the during the 2015 Memorial Day
Shark photo flood, where it was debunked by
the fact-checking website Snopes.
It has previously been credited to
numerous other natural disasters.
This time a Dublin, Ireland based
blogger named Jason Michael
helped start the rumor and his
tweet had been shared more than
11,000 times 
• Bias through statistics:

To make a disaster seem more

spectacular (and therefore worthy of
reading about), numbers can be
inflated. "A hundred injured in air
crash" can be the same as "only
minor injuries in air crash,"
reflecting the opinion of the person
doing the counting.
Bias through Omission & Selection
 Bias through Names
& Titles
The way a person is described or labeled can
influence the way we think about them. The title
of the article may also reveal bias. 
a)“Harvard University reject, Jack Ma, is the
owner of an internet-based business called
Alibaba.”b)“Wealthy business icon, Jack Ma, is
the founder and CEO of an internet-based
business called Alibaba.”
 Who wrote the article?
–Who is the author using as a source for
the article? (The person providing quotes
or describing the event)
–Whose point of view are you hearing or
Bias through reading?–
Does the author include quotes and
Sources information from people who have
different points of view, or not?
–Remember – you cannot always trust
information from all sources. Make sure to
read about the event from many different
articles and news companies to get a better
picture.
LET’S REVIEW!
1.Bias through omission (leaving stuff
out)
2.Bias through photos (do they look
good or bad?)
3.Bias through names & titles (how do
they label people?)
4.Bias through numbers and statistics
(how do they present the numbers?)
5.Bias through word choice (positive or
negative words?)
IN CONCLUSION...

Everyone has bias. Nearly everything

that we read contains bias.
As a reader, you need to become aware
of that bias so that you can create your
own opinion on the subject.
In other words – you can’t believe
everything you read – think about why
the author is writing as you read the
information, and always read multiple
sources.
Look through newspaper magazines and articles for
you you think exaggeration or bias is.

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/default.stm
• http://www.dogonews.com/,
• http://www.timeforkids.com/news  
• http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/scholasticnews/index.
html