Book Review: Overcoming Bias: A Journalist’s Guide to Culture and Context and Ethics for Public Communication

Abstract

Sue Ellen Christian Overcoming Bias: A Journalist's Guide to Culture and Context. Scottsdale, AZ: Holcomb Hathaway, 2012. 224 pp.Clifford C. Christians, Mark Fackler, and John P. Ferre Ethics for Public Communication. New York, NY: Oxford, 2012. 294 pp.Part of effective journalism education is sharing the best practices of the field with students and having them develop those skills in their coursework. Another part is getting students to think about the ethical implications of those practices. Both are important, and ideally they complement each other.These two books, taken together, match that mission. One stresses practical advice to journalism students (as well as those already in the field) and does so with an underpinning of fairness and accuracy, with a dash of psychology. The other offers a broad vision of ethical communication, including news that the authors see as a way toward a just, progressive society.First, to the practices. Sue Ellen Christian's text on bias in mass media is a useful and engaging book that takes on an issue that all journalists face at some point in their careers. The key to avoiding bias in our work, she says, is recognizing limitations in our outlook and addressing them head-on.Knowing your own allows you to better navigate the mental processes that unfairly bias your reporting, Christian writes. News audiences need journalists who view the world with an open mind (p. 4).Christian, an award-winning reporter for the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers before going into academia, uses that experience to show how bias can slip into nearly every aspect of news. Her book covers topics such as evaluating story ideas, avoiding stereotypes, and being careful with word choice.Much of the discussion is linked to real-life incidents in the field that are relatable to veteran journalists and students alike. One testimonial is from a reporter, who was then fresh out of journalism school and assigned to write a profile on an elderly couple. They had built an environmentally friendly house in the Montana wilderness. The reporter describes being suddenly tongue-tied in interviewing the husband and wife because of age, but goes on to say how the experience helped him see that older people don't fit the stereotypes he often saw in mass media (p. 18).Each chapter of the book concludes with a wealth of exploration exercises. Unlike some textbooks, Overcoming Bias uses this technique effectively, asking specific discussion questions that would almost certainly generate conversation in the classroom. A helpful appendix has extended excerpts of news stories mentioned earlier in the text; these too can prompt classroom discussion and serve as examples of effective writing and reporting.Christian also touches on the psychology of how journalists do their jobs. Like all people, journalists tend to create schemas, or narratives, about the world around us. This can be hazardous, of course, and Christian uses media coverage of the Duke lacrosse rape case as an example of this problem. When that story broke, many news organizations jumped to conclusions about the guilt of the players because it fit the preconceptions and prior experiences. In the end, the players were exonerated.Ironically, Overcoming Bias has a bias of its own-toward reporters. What about the obstacles of bias faced by copy editors, graphic designers, and photographers? Indeed, as the print industry cuts jobs, the remaining journalists (and those just starting out after getting their journalism degrees) may be asked to do any and all of these functions. A broader discussion of the use of social media as a reporting tool, both pros and cons, would also strengthen the book. Despite that shortcoming, Overcoming Bias is an accessible book that would be a welcome addition to any reporting class-or in any newsroom. …