An Analysis of the Biases in the Media in United States

These days there are so many different media sources from a vast array of backgrounds and locations. With such a variety, the media is thought to be bias when reporting on news stories. Is this media bias really happening? To find out, three sources that are neutral, conservative, or liberal, and one story covered by all three were chosen. These articles were analyzed and compared to figure out an answer to this important question.

To find out if the media is biased or not, a popular but controversial news story had to be chosen. The story about 3D printing guns provides a great story to analyze. This story is about a variety of people making guns or gun parts easily and at home on their 3D printers. Because the story brings up the fear of any person being able to have a gun, it forces the news sources to show their side on gun laws. This makes it easy to compare each media source’s bias on the situation at hand.

The first media source to analyze is the New York Times, which is widely considered a neutral source, Neutrality is very obvious in this article as no clear side on gun laws is shown. The writer simply gives the readers the facts and figures on the story. The only time a side on gun laws is shown is in the interviews with people involved. Instead of emphasizing about how bad it could be with people printing guns left and right, or how out of proportion people are making it, the writer focuses on how inconvenient it actually is to print guns. The New York Times strategically picks a smaller but far less controversial topic to not contradict anyone’s views and stay neutral. Henry Fountain, the author, explains how 3D printed guns are “about as likely to kill the gunman as the target,” and that 3D printers “are slow, often taking hours to build an object, and the results […] can be too crude for extremely close-fitting parts” (Fountain). These points do not go into the rights and wrongs of guns but only explain the truth of 3D printers which other sources barely touch on. This source clearly provides a neutral stance and conveniently provides the readers with the facts.

On the other hand, the next source, American Prospect, provides a clear liberal stance and tries to influence readers to agree with them on their stance on a situation. The author, Paul Waldman, uses a tone of voice and style of writing that is obviously anti-gun. In the very first sentence of his piece, he writes, “What happens when you can make as many guns as you want with your 3-D printer?” (Waldman). This makes the readers answer this hypothetical question by saying something along the lines of mass murders will result with 3D printing guns. Right from the start, the readers are pushed to the side that says guns are awful objects no matter the context. The article then talks about how easily it is to get a 3D printer and how they “will be as common a household appliance as microwave ovens” which implies that people with bad intentions will be more likely to get their hands on a firearm (Waldman). Waldman also explains that after the printer is acquired, it is very cheap to start printing guns. “[It would] cost you maybe five or ten bucks for the material and that’s it. Why not make a hundred of them?” (Waldman). Again, another obvious anti-gun statement is given to the readers that implies more guns could get into the hands of bad people. Lastly, Waldman plays with the readers’ emotions and scares them with a final statement about printing guns by saying “the possibilities are pretty frightening” (Waldman).

The last media source, The Economist provides an opposite, conservative view on the 3D printing guns story and focuses on their opinion that the situation is blown out of proportion. The author provides pro-gun statements throughout the article while the only anti-gun statements are from interviews with people involved. After the background to the story is given, the author writes, “Some of that fear may be overblown” when talking about the fear of anyone printing guns (Ready, print, fire.). For the rest of the article, examples and statements supporting this claim are provided. The author says “homemade guns are nothing new” and when talking about a ban on printed guns, writes that

“Enforcing a ban when anyone with an internet connection and a 3D printer can make them” is practically impossible (Ready, print, fire.). A general, conservative message telling the readers to not worry about the small situation of people printing guns is given in this article.

With the analyzation of the one story covered by three different sources, bias is obviously present in the sources that are usually liberal or conservative. These sources set out to have a clear side on the situation of gun control, and wanted to make the reader form the same view as them by having a specific tone and giving select examples. The neutral source on the other hand, gave no clear side on gun control. This allowed The New York Times to go very in depth with their article and provided a lot more information than the other sources. Many quotes from either side of the argument, and informative statistics were given to the readers in this neutral article. As you can see, there is a large variety of news sources that all have their different views on media stories. Only one story was analyzed here, but the statement that sources have different views on subjects stands true for all stories in the whole of journalism.

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