Library: Media Bias: Home

Home

Welcome! This guide will serve as a starting point for Shippensburg University students wishing to conduct research on various aspects of the national debate over media bias. You will find sources that introduce you to your topic and keep you up-to-date with links to news articles, research websites, journal articles, and research reports concerning media bias.

Search Terms

Main Term(s): media bias
Related Terms: mass media, press, objectivity, perception
Broader Terms: journalism, prejudices, political campaigns, discrimination, journalistic ethics
Narrower Terms: public opinion, elections, newspapers, reporters and reporting, mass media influence

Background Sources

Additional Sources

Books & Reference Books

Books & Ebooks

Ethics and the Media: An Introduction by Stephen J. A. Ward
Call Number: EBL E-book
Publication Date: 2011
This book is a comprehensive introduction to media ethics and an exploration of how it must change to adapt to today's media revolution. Using an ethical framework for the new 'mixed media' ethics--taking in the global, interactive media produced by both citizens and professionals--Stephen J. A. Ward discusses the ethical issues which occur in both mainstream and non-mainstream media, from newspapers and broadcast to social media users and bloggers. He re-defines traditional conceptions of journalistic truth-seeking, objectivity and minimizing harm, and examines the responsible use of images in an image-saturated public sphere.
Global Entertainment Media: a Critical Introduction by Lee Artz
Publication Date: 2015
Balancing provocative criticism with clear explanations of complex ideas, this student-friendly introduction investigates the crucial role global entertainment media has played in the emergence of transitional capitalism. Examines the influence of global entertainment media on the emergence of transnational capitalism, providing a framework for explaining and understanding world culture as part of changing class relations and media practices Uses action adventure movies to demonstrate the complex relationship between international media political economy, entertainment content, global culture, and cultural hegemony Draws on examples of public and community media in Venezuela and Latin America to illustrate the relations between government policies, media structures, public access to media, and media content Engagingly written with crisp and controversial commentary to both inform and entertain readers Includes student-friendly features such as fully-integrated call out boxes with definitions of terms and concepts, and lists and summaries of transnational entertainment media
Conservative Bias: How Jesse Helms Pioneered the Rise of Right-Wing Media and Realigned the Republican Party by Bryan H. Thrift
Publication Date: 2014
Before Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck, there was Jesse Helms. From in front of a camera at WRAL-TV, Helms forged a new brand of southern conservatism long before he was a senator from North Carolina. As executive vice president of the station, Helms delivered commentaries on the evening news and directed the news and entertainment programming. He pioneered the attack on the liberal media, and his editorials were some of the first shots fired in the culture wars, criticizing the influence of "immoral entertainment." Through the emerging power of the household television Helms established a blueprint and laid the foundation for the modern conservative movement. Bryan Thrift mines over 2,700 WRAL-TV "Viewpoint" editorials broadcast between 1960 and 1972 to offer not only a portrait of a skilled rhetorician and wordsmith but also a lens on the way the various, and at times competing, elements of modern American conservatism cohered into an ideology couched in the language of anti-elitism and "traditional values." Decades prior to the invention of the blog, Helms corresponded with his viewers to select, refine, and sharpen his political message until he had reworked southern traditionalism into a national conservative movement. The realignment of southern Democrats into the Republican Party was not easy or inevitable, and by examining Helms's oft-forgotten journalism career, Thrift shows how delicately and deliberately this transition had to be cultivated.
Undercover Reporting: The Truth About Deception by Brooke Kroeger; Pete Hamill (Foreword by)
ISBN: 0810126192
Publication Date: 2012
In her provocative book, Brooke Kroeger argues for a reconsideration of the place of oft-maligned journalistic practices. While it may seem paradoxical, much of the valuable journalism in the past century and a half has emerged from undercover investigations that employed subterfuge or deception to expose wrong. Kroeger asserts that undercover work is not a separate world, but rather it embodies a central discipline of good reporting--the ability to extract significant information or to create indelible, real-time descriptions of hard-to-penetrate institutions or social situations that deserve the public's attention. Together with a companion website that gathers some of the best investigative work of the past century, Undercover Reporting serves as a rallying call for an endangered aspect of the journalistic endeavor.
Oil and Water: Media Lessons from Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon Disaster by Andrea Miller; Shearon Roberts; Victoria LaPoe
Publication Date: 2014
Along the Gulf Coast, history is often referenced as pre-Katrina or post-Katrina. However, the natural disaster that appalled the world in 2005 has been joined by another catastrophe, this one man-made--the greatest environmental and maritime accident of all time, the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. In less than five years, the Gulf Coast has experienced two colossal disasters, very different, yet very similar. And these two equally complex crises have resulted in a steep learning curve for all, but especially the journalists covering these enduring stories. In Oil and Water, the authors show how Katrina journalists have reluctantly had to transform into oil spill journalists. The authors look at this process from the viewpoints not only of the journalists, but also of the public and of the scientific community. This book assesses the quality of journalism and the effects that quality may have on the public. The authors argue that regardless of the type of journalism involved or the immensity of the events covered, successful reportage still depends on the fundamentals of journalism and the importance of following these tenets consistently in a crisis atmosphere, especially when confronted with enduring crises that are just years apart.
Assessing Evidence in a Postmodern World by Bonnie Brennen
Publication Date: 2013
The Invention of Journalism Ethics, Second Edition: The Path to Objectivity and Beyond by Stephen J.A. Ward (Editor)
Publication Date: 2015
Does objectivity exist in the news media? In The Invention of Journalism Ethics, Stephen Ward argues that given the current emphasis on interpretation, analysis, and perspective, journalists and the public need a new theory of objectivity. He explores the varied ethical assertions of journalists over the past few centuries, focusing on the changing relationship between journalist and audience. This historical analysis leads to an innovative theory of pragmatic objectivity that enables journalists and the public to recognize and avoid biased and unbalanced reporting. Ward convincingly demonstrates that journalistic objectivity is not a set of absolute standards but the same fallible but reasonable objectivity used for making decisions in other professions and public institutions. Considered a classic in the field since its first publication in 2004, this second edition includes new chapters that bring the book up to speed with journalism ethics in the twenty-first century by focusing on the growing dominance of online journalism and calling for a radical approach to journalism ethics reform. Ward also addresses important developments that have occurred in the last decade, including the emergence of digital journalism ethics and global journalism ethics.
Deciding What's True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism by Lucas Graves
Publication Date: 2016
Over the past decade, American outlets such as PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, and the Washington Post's Fact Checker have shaken up the political world by holding public figures accountable for what they say. Cited across social and national news media, these verdicts can rattle a political campaign and send the White House press corps scrambling. Yet fact-checking is a fraught kind of journalism, one that challenges reporters' traditional roles as objective observers and places them at the center of white-hot, real-time debates. As these journalists are the first to admit, in a hyperpartisan world, facts can easily slip into fiction, and decisions about which claims to investigate and how to judge them are frequently denounced as unfair play. Deciding What's True draws on Lucas Graves's unique access to the members of the newsrooms leading this movement. Graves vividly recounts the routines of journalists at three of these hyperconnected, technologically innovative organizations and what informs their approach to a story. Graves also plots a compelling, personality-driven history of the fact-checking movement and its recent evolution from the blogosphere, reflecting on its revolutionary remaking of journalistic ethics and practice. His book demonstrates the ways these rising organizations depend on professional networks and media partnerships yet have also made inroads with the academic and philanthropic worlds. These networks have become a vital source of influence as fact-checking spreads around the world.

Research Organizations

Advocacy Organizations

Organizations Monitoring Conservative Media Bias

Organizations Monitoring Liberal Media Bias

Fact Checking Organizations

Databases

General

Ship Discovery Search This link opens in a new window
This library database serves as a search engine to search most library databases at the same time, including magazine and journal databases, e-book collections, and the library catalog. News databases are not included in a comprehensive way. Supplement this with direct searching of ProQuest Newstand and Lexis Nexis Academic. Search results default to items that the library owns, either in online or print format. Remove the "Available in Library Collection" limiter to retrieve items available through interlibrary loan.
Access on-campus or off-campus with your ShipID
Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Complete is our most important general database. covering all subject areas. It is useful for research in all classes, as it includes 26+ million newspaper, magazine, and journal articles, with 50% of these immediately available in full-text.
Access from on campus or off campus with Ship ID.
Contents indexed in Ship Library Discovery Search.
ProQuest Global Newsstream This link opens in a new window
One of the most comprehensive news databases in the world, ProQuest Global Newstream includes access to over 3000 news sources, including 2,200 newspapers, as well as blogs, podcasts, websites and news wire feeds worldwide.
Development note - alt link use stats: (91 total hits, 33 since 7/2012 -- 10 /2012)

Library Guide to Current News Sources
This mobile-friendly guide provide excellent access to the best high-quality new sources.

Westlaw This link opens in a new window
This library database is one of the world's largest full-text databases, including very extensive news, legal, and business information. Along with ProQuest Newstand, it is our primary source of news information.
Access from on campus or off campus with Ship ID.

Specialized

Communication Source This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive resource for communication research. Communication Source was developed from a merger of Communication and Mass Media Complete and Communication Abstracts (formerly published by Sage), and includes many unique sources not previously available in other databases. Communication Source offers abstracts and indexing as well as full-text content from publications worldwide pertaining to Communication, Linguistics, Rhetoric and Discourse, Speech-Language Pathology, Media Studies and other fields relevant to the discipline.
Access from on campus or off campus with Ship ID.
ComAbstracts This link opens in a new window
Covers the primary professional literature of the communication(s) field.
Contains abstracts of articles, books and audio materials, as well as bibliographic records.
Access from on campus or off campus with Ship ID.

Key Publications

Find Your Own Sources

Library Background Databases

CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window
Library database that covers the most important and controversial issues of the day. Contains the full text of CQ Researcher, a weekly publication. Each issue provides a comprehensive overview and background essay, data tables and graphs, chronology, pro-con starter, and list of major research and advocacy groups. Includes extensive lists of sources and hot-linked footnotes throughout.
Access from on campus or off campus with Ship ID.

Quality Web Sources

In-Depth Journalism

ProPublica
ProPublica is a freely available website produced by a major online non-profit news organization dedicated to in-depth investigative reporting about current issues in the public interest. ProPublica features two kinds of reporting: Investigations, which include a series of in-depth articles about a topic (often between 15 and 30 articles - major topics range from dozens to 100+ articles). MuckReads are shorter reports featuring investigative journalism from other news agencies. Major areas of interest include, among others: healthcare and the health industry, fracking, censorship, money and politics, and financial and economic issues.
Reveal: The Center for Investigative Reporting
Reveal is a freely available website and the online media platform for the Center for Investigative Journalism, a major online non-profit news organization, founded in 1977, and dedicated to in-depth investigative reporting about current issues in the public interest. They publish series of investigative reports on a topic (typically between 10 and 20). Major areas of coverage include: criminal justice, the environment, guns, health care, labor and employment, national security, religion, surveillance and privacy, and veterans.
Center for Public Integrity
The Center for Public Integrity is a freely available website produced by a major online non-profit news organization dedicated to in-depth investigative reporting about current issues in the public interest, with a special focus on accountability and fairness, especially in terms of the role and influence of money. Topics featured include politics and elections, national security business, the environment, juvenile justice and health.
National Public Radio (NPR)
NPR is one of the most important freely-available sources of investigative journalism. It includes excellent topical pages but these are not easily browseable on the website. Use the High Quality Web Source Finder search box to locate the topical pages for your issue.
Journalist's Resource
This very high quality web site, located at Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and sponsored by leading academic journalism programs, guides journalists and other researchers to find scholarly sources related to many of the most important topics in the news. Whenever the source is not available in full-text, use the discovery layer or library A-Z journal list to get library access to the article or to order it on interlibrary loan.

Newspaper Topic Guides

A number of important national newspapers have topic or issue sections of their website that bring together all the paper's articles on particular topics. The leading example of this is "Times Topics" from the New York Times. Each topic guide/section has a search tool that lets you refine your search.

Unfortunately, these sections are often not easy to browse or locate on the newspaper websites. Use the "High Quality Web Source Finder" search box above to search for your topic. Then choose the Newspaper Topic Guides tab to look for these in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune. If you should hit a pay wall when browsing these newspapers, simply search for articles from any of these three papers using the ProQuest Newstand library database.

Science News

Congressional Research Service Reports (CRS Reports)

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is the public policy research division of Congress. It issues detailed research reports on a very wide range of issues. CRS doesn't maintain its own website, but its reports are available through several organizations and libraries.

EveryCRSReport.com
Website that attempts to make all CRS reports easily available to the public. The result of a bi-partisan movement to get Congress to pass a bill requiring open access.
Congressional Research Service Reports (University of North Texas)
The University of North Texas maintains a freely available digital library collection of Congressional Research Service reports, with the goal "to provide integrated, searchable access to many of the full-text CRS reports that have been available at a variety of different web sites since 1990" -- website. Best search tool for finding CRS reports. Update holdings of specific reports through the Federation of American Scientists or through a web search on the name of a report.
Congressional Research Service Reports Archive (Federation of American Scientists)
As a public service, the Federation of American Scientists maintains this free archive of CRS reports.

Web Directories

Public Policy Issues and Groups (Vanderbilt Univ.)
This freely available website produced by the Vanderbilt University Libraries provides an alphabetical topical directory to important websites on some 50 current issues. These guide pages typically include sections for these kinds of web resources: Basic Sites, Government, International, News, Statistics, Interest Groups and Research Centers and Other Educational Sites.

Media Bias

Home

Search Terms

Background Sources

Background Sources

Additional Sources

Books & Reference Books

Books & Ebooks

Research Organizations

Advocacy Organizations

Organizations Monitoring Conservative Media Bias

Organizations Monitoring Liberal Media Bias

Fact Checking Organizations

Databases

General

Specialized

Key Publications

Find Your Own Sources

Library Background Databases

Quality Web Sources

High Quality Web Source Finder

In-Depth Journalism

Newspaper Topic Guides

Science News

Congressional Research Service Reports (CRS Reports)

Web Directories

Contact the Ezra Lehman Memorial Library