Sophie Hu ’26, Feature Editor

An illustration of how overwhelming consuming news media can be (Photo courtesy of The American Psychological Association)

How do we distinguish between fact and fiction? How do we find the truth? With the current political climate and polarization of society, finding the answer to these questions is more important than ever before. Usually, people turn to the media to learn about current events and gather truthful pictures of what is happening in the world around them. However, every story is influenced by the storyteller, and news stories are no exception. Every piece of news runs the risk of telling only one side of the story. Even more concerning, many consumers of the news are beginning to narrow their sources solely to those that agree with their own worldviews, ultimately creating echo chambers that only confirm what they think is true.

Americans are well aware of the danger of bias in their news reporting. In a poll conducted by Gallup in 2024, 36% of U.S. adults polled have no trust in the news media, and another 33% have “not very much confidence.” In fact, news media tied with Congress for the least trusted institution out of ten U.S. civic and political institutions. 

Ultimately, the news is an essential part of American democracy and society. While the news is unlikely to ever be completely unbiased or impartial, it is impossible to imagine a world without it. Given this state of news media today, how can we, as consumers, navigate media bias and ensure we get the best understanding of what is happening?

The News Literacy Project, a non-profit aiming to improve students’ media literacy, lays out the following steps:

• Approach bias as a spectrum —  no piece of news will be completely free of bias, so it is better to think of sources as more or less biased.
• Ask questions — specifically, when faced with allegations of bias, ask: biased compared to what? Is there an example of more impartial and accurate information?
• Understand the types and forms of bias — what types of bias are you seeing? What forms are they taking?
  • Types of bias include:
    • Big story bias: when there is bias when journalists perceive an event as a major story.
    • Demographic bias: when there is bias as a result of identities of the individuals involved in the story.
    • Neutrality bias: when there is a misrepresentation of facts as a result of efforts to appear as neutral as possible.
    • Partisan bias: when a journalist’s own political views affect how they cover the news.
  • Forms of bias include:
    • Failure to present all the sides of stories fairly and accurately.
    • Selectively choosing stories and sources deemed relevant or important enough to be reported on.

A media literacy guide created by the University of Iowa agrees that the above are necessary skills, and, additionally, it recommends using Google or another search engine to learn more about the publisher, funding organization or author of a specific piece of information. Ideally, you should be able to find at least 3 to 5 sources that discuss your original source. 

Members of NA’s community share similar thoughts; Dati, an Upper School English teacher, says the first step towards navigating media bias is recognizing that there is media bias in the first place. He advises the NA community to “assume that what you’re reading is catered towards the group who paid for it, at the end of the day.” Junior Tunde Fagbemi recommends using more than one news source for everything we read, adding that it is important to understand the rationale behind the views we read about, even if we find them personally problematic.

These tools and tips can help us be more aware of bias in news media and become active readers. By becoming more conscious and deliberate consumers of news media we can prevent ourselves from falling into echo chambers or allowing our own biases to blind us to the realities around us.