What is Bias by Word Choice and Tone anyways?
Bias by word choice and tone is when a writer purposely uses negative or postitve words to persuade the viewer or reader.
It's also when a writer leaves out important words to influence a viewer or reader.
Bias by Word Choice and Tone
By: Adeola, Reece and Julia
This type of bias is neutral.
Example 1:
For example, since Canada's women hockey team won the finals against the US in Sochi on yesterday, The National Post might declare the win as a;
"Phenomenal victory against our main rivals leads Canada to gold!"
But a newspaper from the United States like The New York Times might say;
"Americans just miss gold in a close game against the Canadians!"
This is a neutral example of bias by word choice and tone because both newspapers want to make the story more pleasing to their readers.
This example is negative.
How to detect it?
These next slides will give examples on what this type of bias is.
Example 2:
This example is bias by word choice because we can't tell the
whole story by the headline.
"92 year-old woman injured after brutally pushed down."
sounds pretty sad but how about
"92 year-old woman injured after being accidentally tripped."?
This negative bias by word choice shows that the writer wanted to show physical abuse to make their story more interesting.
Bias by word choice is hard to detect. The best way to see whether or not it is bias is to check other sources to see what they say.
Bias by Tone
Being bias by tone is for example using sarcasm to exaggerate something we don't like.
Our Sources:
http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2012/04/92-year-old_union_city_man_bru.html
http://www.laurens55.k12.sc.us/cms/lib6/SC01000500/Centricity/ModuleInstance/3281/Authors_Tone_and_Bias.pdf
http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDcQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ccisd.com%2Fcms%2Flib%2FTX01000559%2FCentricity%2FDomain%2F432%2Fbias-in-the-news.ppt&ei=rXgGU6rlCu-isASYpoD4Cg&usg=AFQjCNEKjXQooKAjrqzIIqnHxCd7uLmyvA
http://www.google.com/imghp
Bias by Word Choice
Being bias by word choice is leaving words out of a headline or paragraph that don't support your side or point of view.
This example is negative.
Example 3:
Sam and Davis got into a fight,
Usually, the word fight does not put blame on one person.
Sam attacked Davis and they fought,
Clearly the word fight puts the blame on Sam. Writers do this so the readers think that their point of view is correct or so the story is more interesting to readers. For these reasons this examples are biased.