Lately, the unreasonable and biased Facebook posts being shared by friends and family have made me deeply concerned. Most recently, my cousin shared a video from “Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children” showing a man threatening a high school student with a pocketknife at a PTA meeting in Long Island, N.Y. The headline read, “Liberals Panic at a PTA Meeting.”
My first response was, “Wouldn’t anyone panic if someone was being threatened with a knife?” It certainly doesn’t sound stress-free; more significant, why use this incident to drive conservatives and liberals further apart? It is time to realize how our news sources divide us. It is our job to find accurate information and stop sharing hate.
When placing other news outlets’ headlines next to each other, it’s easy to see the unnecessary division they create. Newsweek, a source rated with a slightly left-leaning bias, titles its story “Parent Displays Pocketknife to Student at School Safety Meeting.” On Rawstory, a source rated with a far-left bias, the headline reads, “Gun-Loving Dad Terrifies Teen During School Meeting on Firearms.” The Blaze, rated as a far-right source, leads with, “Man Gets in Student’s Face, Pulls Out Apparent Knife at Board Meeting to Show Lax School Security.”
After reading these, you might wonder if it’s even the same story. It is. I challenge you to do this with all news stories that make you shake your head. Check them out on other sites. What’s the real story?
For instance, another friend shared Tucker Carlson’s Fox News video titled “Purdue Writing Guide Says Avoid Use of Words with ‘Man.’” In this segment, Carlson argues that liberals are now waging war on the word “man.” He interviews a supposed expert, Cathy Areu, publisher of Catalina Magazine, who states that the Purdue online writing guide would probably suggest that Manhattan and Manchester change the names of their cities to be less offensive to liberals.
I use Purdue University’s online writing guide for master’s level papers and this didn’t seem quite right, so I did some research. In the writing guide’s section called Gender Biased Language, it discusses the importance of using appropriate language for different audiences. Some examples include using “mail carrier” instead of “mailman,” “firefighter” instead of “fireman,” or “flight attendant” instead of “steward” or “stewardess.” It’s not a war on “man” or even about being politically correct; it’s about using professional and appropriate language when writing.
This video was shared 502,000 times and has been viewed by 45 million people. My friends were certainly in disbelief and furious; obviously, very few took the time to look at Purdue’s writing guide and instead played into this divisive hate.
I encourage you to become familiar with your media bias. Our computers even provide searches that match our bias; it is called the “Filter Bubble.” What news sources are you reading? Where do they fall on the bias scale? You can look up news sources at allsides.com. You can also search for “Keepin’ It Real: Tips & Strategies for Evaluating Fake News” to find out more on news bias.
If a news article feels particularly divisive, it probably is. Research articles before you share and let your friends know about the middle ground you find. In political science, we learned that conservatives and liberals balance each other out; there is no need for hate. It is our job to recognize extreme bias.
If we can do this, I believe we will find common ground leading to compromise, not division.
Ashly Dean, American Fork, is in the master of social work program at the University of Utah. She previously taught art and English.