Opinion paper

I have to write an opinion paper for class that we turn into a research paper later on. I am having trouble thinking of the best topic. Or an easy one to write about at that. I have come up with one topic: Bias in the media and how it should not be allowed. If anyone can help me expand on this topic or even suggest another one all together I would be so grateful.

The board at ATS is FULL of topics. You could even find one here on BTS. Some of the better threads have plenty of links for additional research.

reply to post by Fallacy


If your topic is about media bias, which incidentally was what I was thinking of writing about (but decided not too because I'm lazy and also because nobody cares about the topics I post on ATS ) then a good place too look for resources would be in the Deconstructing Disinformation and Deflection forum. You can take some points in BitRaiser's Iran thread and DontTreadOnMe's China thread. Plenty of good points in there.

And if you want to look for info on the palm oil smear campaign which has an obvious bias, you can see my post in the Coconut oil thread in the Peak oil forum, which nobody cares about as well Actually you can look at a lot of my threads which tries to show the other side of things.... which nobody cares about...

I wonder why I even bother sometimes...

Thanks for your help so far, i really appreciate it. What do you think of this thesis: News outlets should not have a bias because it distorts the true nature of events.

reply to post by Fallacy


In an ideal world that would work. Unfortunately the nature of mass media is that it has something called "Information Gatekeepers," who are people. And everyone has a bias.

Maybe you can work on that angle instead, the gatekeepers. They're the cause of the bias, mostly. They decide which story is news and which isn't.

Interesting, this would most definitly work, do you have any sources on these gatekeepers? I googled it but came up informantion gatekeepers group.

you'll need to adjust your keywords.

Try "information gatekeeper" + news.

Doing that I got the following (just as a sample):

findarticles.com...

www.metaforix.info...

You might have some luck on scholar.google.com... using the same keywords; however, on google scholar most things you'll find will be abstracts and they want you to pay for the paper. But some books are mentioned as well, with links to sample pages that might help you.

Beachcoma probably has more advice -- this is his area of expertise.

reply to post by Fallacy


The gatekeepers are usually the editors and the owners of news companies. It's different with each company, but lately a lot of independent news outlets have become consolidated under the same holding company. A good example would be Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Try looking that up.

In the following thread, iskander has compiled a list of News Corp affiliated companies:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

You should also run a web search on Rupert Murdoch himself and check out the company he keeps, who his affiliations are.

Of course, other non-affiliated news companies have their own gatekeepers with their own agenda.

One more thing, learn how to really use Google.

This site would give you a head start:

Google Guide Quick Reference: Google Advanced Operators (Cheat Sheet)

It's amazing what you can find with the right operators.