Point of ViewObjective adj. not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
No matter how information is communicated, it's done so from somebody's point of view.
- Even Google News, famous for its blind selection of articles, relies on an algorithm that was designed by human beings with the chief aim of retrieving articles "based on factors including how often and on what sites a story appears online." Necessarily, some newsworthy articles that do not match the parameters programmed into Google News' filters will fall by the wayside.
- Because no information resource can simultaneously present every possible viewpoint with 100% objectivity, bias is inevitable.
- Certainly, some sources have a stronger slant than others do.
- Nevertheless, if you look closely enough, you can identify biases in even the most objective-seeming sources (including this one).
Bias usually gets a bad rap, but it needn't always be frowned upon. Nobel Peace Prize recipient Ralph Bunche proclaimed his biases with pride:
"I have a deep-seated bias against hate and intolerance. I have a bias
against racial and religious bigotry. I have a bias against war, a bias
for peace. I have a bias which leads me to believe that no problem
of human relations is ever insoluble."
So, bias is not always bad, but it is our job to recognize and consider the bias when evaluating information.
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