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Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media

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With media and communication studies becoming more and more popular in both academic and professional worlds, awareness of issues of integrity, validity and reliability of the news has become critical for both student and media worker. As journalism undergoes a shift of paradigm that no longer considers the traditional values of news relevant in the race and chase for political, cultural and economic supremacy worldwide, detecting unreliable sources and bias in news media becomes all the more critical in a world that is flooded by 24-hour news television networks that rely mostly on secondary and tertiary sources and news feeds from the Big Four (Reuters, AP, AFP and UPI). Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media,by Martin A. Lee and Norman Solomon is a source book ahead of its time. Published in 1990, this book stands out as a valuable guide for students, teachers and professionals of news media in a world that is rapidly changing. The book consists of 12 well-written chapters, supported by real-life examples. These chapters are sorted out into four parts: (1) The Story behind the Story; (2) The Media Elite; (3) Domestic Routines; (4) International Intrigues. Lee and Solomon skillfully review and analyze news media practices that produce bias and and create a hyper-reality. For those determined to know how to detect untruths in news media, this rich book is a prerequisite.

Essential reading for the reasons why our media is so awful, biased and corrupted by corporate and government interests.

jw

This is one of the single most thought provoking books I've ever read. It provides the reader with a real behind the curtain look at the media and politics. This is a must read for every American!

This book carefully in no nonsense language, analyzes the media bias and the institution of the media and how it operates and how the final product gets aired on news televison or in print. This along with Manufacturing Consent by Herman and Chomsky is a must if people want to know the truth about the media

First, I was surprised to find out that the media is as conservative and Republican as it apparently is. One would certainly not guess it from the reporting that is done. And what was really lacking in this book was any kind of even handed approach to bias in the news. I'd grant that there is bias towards the right in some reporting. But by reading this book you'd think that there was only far-right leaning reporting only with nary a lean to the left in any news reports.

One point raised by the authors more than once was the use in news reports of unnamed sources and few hand-picked named "expert" sources. But throughout their diatribe against the right-wing controlled media they used many of these same techniques with many an unnamed source as well as the (over)use of a small number of "expert" sources used to prove their points.

I was truly looking for a book that helped in understanding and, as they say, detecting biases in the news media. What I came away with in this book was that it was written by some far left wing fanatics (should have guessed based on the foreword being written by Ed Asner) who did not want to give a balanced treatment to this topic (who but someone like Asner could have guessed that the NY Times is really a Republican mouthpiece!)