False balance, also bothsidesism, is a
media bias
Media bias is the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of many events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening of J ...
in which journalists present an issue as being more balanced between opposing viewpoints than the evidence supports. Journalists may present evidence and arguments out of proportion to the actual evidence for each side, or may omit information that would establish one side's claims as baseless. False balance has been cited as a cause of
misinformation
Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. It differs from disinformation, which is ''deliberately'' deceptive. Rumors are information not attributed to any particular source, and so are unreliable and often unverified, but can turn ...
.
False balance is a bias which usually stems from an attempt to avoid bias and gives unsupported or dubious positions an illusion of respectability. It creates a public perception that some issues are scientifically contentious, though in reality they may not be, therefore creating
doubt
Doubt is a mental state in which the mind remains suspended between two or more contradictory propositions, unable to be certain of any of them.
Doubt on an emotional level is indecision between belief and disbelief. It may involve uncertainty ...
about the scientific state of research, and can be exploited by interest groups such as corporations like the
fossil fuel
A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and burned as a fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuels m ...
industry or the
tobacco industry
The tobacco industry comprises those persons and companies who are engaged in the growth, preparation for sale, shipment, advertisement, and distribution of tobacco and tobacco-related products. It is a global industry; tobacco can grow in any ...
, or ideologically motivated activists such as
vaccination opponents or
creationists
Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of Creation myth, divine creation.#Gunn 2004, Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' say ...
.
Examples of false balance in
reporting on science
Science journalism conveys reporting about science to the public. The field typically involves interactions between scientists, journalists, and the public.
Origins
Modern science journalism dates back to ''Digdarshan'' (means showing the di ...
issues include the topics of
human-caused climate change versus
natural climate variability, the
health effects of tobacco, the alleged
relation between thiomersal and autism,
alleged negative side effects of the
HPV vaccine
Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines are vaccines that prevent infection by certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV). Available HPV vaccines protect against either two, four, or nine types of HPV. All HPV vaccines protect against at least HP ...
, and
evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
versus
intelligent design
Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". Numbers 2006, p. 373; " Dcaptured headlines for its bold attempt to ...
.
Description and origin
False balance emerges from the ideal of
Journalistic objectivity
Journalistic objectivity is a considerable notion within the discussion of journalistic professionalism. Journalistic objectivity may refer to fairness, disinterestedness, factuality, and nonpartisanship, but most often encompasses all of these ...
, where factual news is presented in a way that allows the reader to make determinations about how to interpret the facts, and interpretations or arguments around those facts are left to the Opinion pages. Because many newsworthy events have two or more opposing camps making competing claims, news media is responsible for reporting all (credible or reasonable) opposing positions, along with verified facts that may support one or the other side of an issue. At one time, when false balance was prevalent, news media sometimes reported all positions as though they were equally credible, even though the facts clearly contradicted a position, or there was a substantial consensus on one side of an issue, and only a fringe or naescent theory supporting the other side.
Today, most media is willing to call out false information as incorrect, such as the idea that the Earth is not warming, or that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election; in contrast to prior decades media will now regularly call the idea that Trump won the election a "lie" or "the big lie." Similarly, claims that the Earth is not warming is regularly referred to in news (vs only editorials) as "denial," "misleading," or "debunked." Prior to this shift, media would sometimes list all positions, without clarifying that one position is known or generally-agreed to be false.
Unlike most other media biases, false balance may stem from an attempt to ''avoid'' bias; producers and editors may confuse treating competing views ''fairly''—i.e., in proportion to their actual merits and significance—with treating them ''equally'', giving them equal time to present their views even when those views may be known beforehand to be based on false information. Media would then present two opposing viewpoints on an issue as equally credible, or to present a major issue on one side of a debate as having the same weight as a minor one on the other.
False balance can also originate from other motives such as
sensationalism
In journalism and mass media, sensationalism is a type of editorial tactic. Events and topics in news stories are selected and worded to excite the greatest number of readers and viewers. This style of news reporting encourages biased or emotio ...
, where producers and editors may feel that a story portrayed as a contentious debate will be more commercially successful than a more accurate (or widely-agreed) account of the issue.
Science journalist Dirk Steffens mocked the practice as comparable to inviting a
flat earther
Modern flat Earth beliefs are promoted by organizations and individuals which make claims that the Earth is flat while denying the Earth's sphericity, contrary to over two millennia of scientific consensus. Flat Earth beliefs are pseudoscie ...
to debate with an astrophysicist over the shape of the Earth, as if
the truth could be found somewhere in the middle.
Liz Spayd
Elizabeth "Liz" Spayd is an American media journalist. She was a managing editor at ''The Washington Post'', the editor of the ''Columbia Journalism Review'', the sixth public editor of ''The New York Times'', and a transparency consultant for ...
of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' wrote: "The problem with false balance doctrine is that it masquerades as rational thinking."
Examples
Climate change
Although the scientific community almost unanimously attributes a majority of the
global warming
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
since 1950 to the effects of the
industrial revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
, there are a very small number – a few dozen scientists out of tens of thousands – who dispute the conclusion. Giving equal voice to scientists on both sides makes it seem like there is a serious disagreement within the scientific community, when in fact there is an overwhelming
scientific consensus on climate change that anthropogenic global warming exists.
MMR vaccine controversy
Observers have criticized the involvement of mass media in the controversy, what is known as "
science by press conference
Science by press conference or science by press release is the practice by which scientists put an unusual focus on publicizing results of research in the media, in the form of press conference events or press release statements. The term is usual ...
",
alleging that the media provided
Andrew Wakefield
Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born September 3, 1956) is a British anti-vaccine activist, former physician, and discredited academic who was struck off the medical register for his involvement in ''The Lancet'' MMR autism fraud, a 1998 study that ...
's study with more credibility than it deserved. A March 2007 paper in ''
BMC Public Health
''BMC Public Health'' is a peer-reviewed open-access scientific journal that covers epidemiology of disease and various aspects of public health. The journal was established in 2001 and is published by BioMed Central.
Abstracting and indexing
Th ...
'' by Shona Hilton, Mark Petticrew, and Kate Hunt postulated that media reports on Wakefield's study had "created the misleading impression that the evidence for the link with autism was as substantial as the evidence against".
Earlier papers in ''Communication in Medicine'' and the ''
British Medical Journal
''The BMJ'' is a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal, published by the trade union the British Medical Association (BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Origi ...
'' concluded that media reports provided a misleading picture of the level of support for Wakefield's hypothesis.
See also
*
Argument to moderation
Argument to moderation ( la, argumentum ad temperantiam)—also known as false compromise, argument from middle ground, and the golden mean fallacy
*
Centrism
Centrism is a political outlook or position involving acceptance or support of a balance of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy while opposing political changes that would result in a significant shift of society strongly to the l ...
*
FCC fairness doctrine
The fairness doctrine of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, was a policy that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manne ...
*
Golden mean
*
Horseshoe theory
In political science and popular discourse, the horseshoe theory asserts that the extreme left and the extreme right, rather than being at opposite and opposing ends of a linear political continuum, closely resemble each other, analogous to t ...
*
Journalistic objectivity
Journalistic objectivity is a considerable notion within the discussion of journalistic professionalism. Journalistic objectivity may refer to fairness, disinterestedness, factuality, and nonpartisanship, but most often encompasses all of these ...
*
Manufactured controversy
A manufactured controversy (sometimes shortened to manufactroversy) is a contrived disagreement, typically motivated by profit or ideology, designed to create public confusion concerning an issue about which there is no substantial academic dispute ...
* ''
Merchants of Doubt
''Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming'' is a 2010 non-fiction book by American historians of science Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. It identifies parallels betw ...
''
*
View from nowhere
Journalistic objectivity is a considerable notion within the discussion of journalistic professionalism. Journalistic objectivity may refer to fairness, disinterestedness, factuality, and nonpartisanship, but most often encompasses all of these ...
References
External links
{{Media manipulation
Bias
News media manipulation
Error
Barriers to critical thinking