Category: Bias

The Issue Of Racial Bias In Police Training

The journal article Understanding Police and Expert Performance: When Training Attenuates (vs. Exacerbates) Stereotypic Bias in the Decision to Shoot by Jessica J. Sim, Joshua Correll, and Melody S. Sadler discusses several studies that were done to address problems police officers are facing where they have shot individuals of color who were unarmed. Experiments were performed on participants and officers to see whether certain criteria was associated with Blacks and Whites having a presence or absence of a weapon or another object. The main question they are tackling is if more Blacks are targets of police force when unarmed or innocent, compared to Whites. When race is related to the presence or absence of a weapon, it raises ethical questions as to whether police training is teaching unreasonable actions towards individuals of target.

In regards of doing a short study, social psychologists and researchers wanted to address the question concerning racial bias in the decision to shoot. They did this by doing a first-person-shooter task (FPST) where participants viewed male targets who were either Black or White and holding a gun or another object (Correll, Sadler & Sim, 2013). When the target appeared on screen, they were to either press a button labeled shoot when armed or don’t shoot when unarmed. They found that race of the target did have a lot to do with the effects of shooting or not shooting (Correll et.al., 2013). Some of the participants were undergraduate students and they were faster to shoot armed targets when they were Black rather than White (Correll et.al., 2013). They were also fasted to choose don’t shoot for unarmed targets when they were White (Correll et.al., 2013). These results tell us that race did have a profound impact in the participants willingness to shoot.

The article states, “This pattern of bias seems to reflect the accessibility of stereotypes that link Blacks to the concept of danger” (Correll et.al., 2013, pg. 292). Researchers wanted to address this question about if we tend to link Blacks to danger by doing another short study where participants read newspaper articles summarizing a series of violent crimes. The articles described the suspect as either White or Black and had attachments of police reports and sketches of the suspects (Correll et.al., 2013). After reading the articles, the participants performed the FPST. Researchers found that participants who read about Black criminals had a more extreme triggering criterion compared to those to had a conservative criterion for Whites (Correll et.al., 2013). Participants also showed no bias when experimenters diminished the Black-danger association by exposing them to articles about White criminals (Correll et.al., 2013). These studies suggest that better training may help officers and people who want to go into the police force overcome the stereotypes and reduce bias overall.

Experiment I was built on previous research where participants read newspaper articles describing crimes committed by Blacks or Whites. They wanted to test the impact of accessibility manipulation on the performance of undergraduates, expert undergraduates and officers (Correll et.al., 2013). They went about this by selecting 75 undergraduates and 52 officers. It’s important to note that the reported results are based on the performance participants who were not Black (Correll et.al., 2013). Undergraduates were then placed under two training conditions, novice or expert, and each group, including the officers, were set to read one of the two fabricated newspaper articles about Black-criminal or White-criminal (Correll et.al., 2013). Each group did the FPST test and points were either awarded or penalized by correctly shooting when necessary or having a false alarm (Correll et.al., 2013). Each group finished 16 practices and 100 test trials (Correll et.al., 2013).

The groups were then required to to read either a White-Criminal or Black-criminal article and had 5 minutes to study the article. They then had to recall as many details as they could and afterwards, performed the FPST (Correll et.al., 2013). Many variables were tested during this experiment and a formula was conducted to simplify and understand the results. Researchers calculated c and d for Black and White targets and computed the difference and average of both (Correll et.al., 2013). After doing computations for each group, results told researchers that participants showed a great amount of racial bias (Correll et.al., 2013). Participants revealed more sensitivity to Black that White targets. Overall, the results summed up what the researchers thought all along, that participants showed a greater bias towards Blacks and a greater willingness to shoot.

To sum it up, as the article states, “Novices were dramatically affected by manipulations of stereotype accessibility, whereas experts and officers were not. These data provide fairly clear support for Hypothesis I, suggesting that training can reduce the effect of accessible stereotypes” (Correll et.al., 2013, pg. 295). Experiment I showed that lab-based training and real world experiences can reduce the impact of stereotypes towards colored people of target, mainly Blacks. Experiment 2 went further into the hypothesis of experiment I. Researchers wanted to test it with students in the laboratory and among police officers using methods to look at differences of their real life experiences (Correll et.al., 2013). In the experiment, participants were randomly assigned to a training task that either reinforced Black-danger stereotype or undermined the stereotype (Correll et.al., 2013). Participants were to complete 16 practice trials and 200 training trials before doing the FPST that was modified for each of the training conditions (Correll et.al., 2013). A second hypothesis was tested during this experiment to see whether racial bias increases as a function between race and threat during the training phase (Correll et.al., 2013). Again, researchers found that participants showed a greater sensitivity towards Black targets compared to White targets. As the article states, “Presumably, mere practice with shoot/don’t-shoot decisions in response to a series of SC targets did not eliminate bias because the racial information in the training phase served as a valid predictor of the presence or absence of a gun” (Correll et.al., 2013, pg. 298). Universally, each study and experiment showed us that people have a tendency to shoot Blacks because of the Black-danger association and whether there was a presence or absence of a gun.

As we talked about in class and what we seen in the world every day, the media and news play a huge role in influencing our thoughts and how we tend to stereotype people. In the mere future, we can only hope that better training and practice comes intact with police officers so we can reduce unreasonable actions of shooting cases. As stated earlier, the main question researchers were answering is if more Blacks are targets of police force when unarmed or innocent, compared to Whites. The answer was unfortunately, yes, and more commonly than we should see. The studies and experiments shown in this article were both complex and elaborate but they provided results that can be used for future purposes in better police training. If training in the future can reduce racial bias, police will better respond to circumstances in a more meaningful manner.

This article clarifies some of the findings discussed in class because we talked about discrimination which is defined as behaviors directed towards others because of their group membership. The media seems biased when explaining stories because you will almost every day see a story about a Black person committing either a crime or an officer who has unjustly shot him/her. Being stereotypical and discriminating against Blacks has caused a huge stir up in society and can turn out for the worst because you can’t categorize a whole group of people because of something some else did. Not only is it unjust, but it does exactly what this article mentions; police officers shooting unarmed Blacks because they looked like a threat from a distance.

I believe some remaining questions are, how can we eliminate racial bias in police training? Why do media outlets outline crimes that target a group of people that causes stereotypes in society? What can we do to reduce all these problems? The findings in this article seem to be both optimistic and pessimistic because they explain the results from the experiments which aren’t necessarily pleasant or positive but researchers seem to be optimistic about the future to better train police officers and reduce stereotypic bias in the decision to shoot.

Left And Right Leaning Bias In The Media

Bias is something that pervades the content of almost every single media outlet even if at first it is not apparent. The modality of bias can range from outright lies, to a more moderate withholding of information about a topic, to the subtle use of umbrella terms, to the pesky and easily missed snuck premise- a logical fallacy in which the person making an argument uses a tweaked definition of the word in order to make their argument appear stronger (Charisma on Command, 1). Although many conservatives and liberals argue that the media is biased for the other side, it is really helpful to delve into how each side of the aisle can use some of these techniques to attempt to distort your world view. Spotting the more subtle fallacies in someone’s writing or real-time speech is more difficult, but most of the time people will attempt to use more overt methods.

The easiest bias to spot in the media are the blatant lies, which are often based off of umbrella terms. A great recent example of this is the claim made earlier last year by the special interest group, Everytown for Gun Safety, that eighteen school shootings happened in the first forty-five days of 2018 (Aiello). To everyone in the country, when you hear there was a school shooting, you think that people have been killed, or at least an armed assailant attempted to kill people. One does not imagine that a school resource officer accidentally discharged his firearm in the parking lot or a student committed suicide by firearm just off of campus. Nonetheless, Everytown for Gun Safety used the term “School Shooting” to mean any type of firearm discharge, intentional or accidental, that was within a certain distance from a school. This claim propagated through liberal media unchecked, such as the cited article by NBC, in which they eventually retracted to seventeen and clarified the definition they were using, after being called out by centrists, moderates, and pro-gun groups. The Washington Post, a Seattle based liberal newspaper, scurrying to help regain liberal journalistic integrity on the topic later published an article directly shutting down the claim (Cox). In this instance, even politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Bill de Blasio re-tweeted, and never deleted or clarified, the complete and utterly fake news (Greenfield). This is a great example of how the left wants to hear what they want to hear, and people do not really care about the facts as much as how a completely unchecked claim might help forward their narrative. This is quite exacerbated by the fact that most fact-checking websites, such as Snopes or Politifact lean left. In this instance, Snopes never even rated this blatant lie (they posted a more explanatory article about it, which somewhat defended the statement) and Politifact rated it mostly untrue instead of the much-deserved and oft dished-out-to-conservatives “Pants on Fire” rating.

Another great example of liberal bias is the recent government shutdown. As a libertarian it is really easy to see the similarities between the government shutdown in 2012 and the most recent, in 2019. In the only other major shutdown in modern times, at the time called the fiscal cliff, Barack Obama refused to sign a CR (Continuing Resolution) that would fund the government unless include funding for Obamacare as well as letting Bush-era payroll and income tax cuts expire. The primary cause of both shutdowns to the unbiased eye is most certainly the use by Congress of continuing resolutions as the flagship method of funding the government (instead of a fixed budget, that would go on by default but not shut the government down). Using a continuing resolution causes the government to shut down any year that an agreement is not reached, and became the flagship method of funding the government bipartisanly, but in liberal media, the republican-majority congress, headed by John Boehner, was intensely vilified on CNN (Calmes) (Sahadi). Even though the republican congress was heavily blamed for the 2012 shutdown, liberals who would point the finger at congress for the 2019 shutdown are currently nowhere to be found. The republican president has been constantly portrayed in the mainstream center-left media as what is essentially the sole cause for the shutdown, such as in this article by CNN (Vasquez). This is a great example of liberal bias, as even though it takes a lack of bipartisanship for a shutdown to happen, it always seems to be the republican party’s fault when the government shuts down. Even with this said, conservatives and their news outlets are nowhere near being devoid of bias themselves.

Looking on the other side of the aisle, conservative media outlets also often use bias, such as logical fallacies and lies to push their agenda. There are numerous examples of extreme right-wing bias every year, but in my opinion the most recent extreme case of this was the attempted character assassination of Dr. Christine Ford by the right wing media. Even before she testified before congress, conservative media outlets already knew how they were going to spin this. They were prepared to attempt to protect Brett Kavanaugh at all costs. Articles were already claiming that she was a liar, untrustworthy, or were extreme as the Washington Times, claiming that Brett Kavanaugh was the true victim and that Dr. Christine Ford definitely was not a victim (Chumlee). This was an event I think conservatives were much more biased than liberals on, but sometimes there are events where both sides are equally biased.

A great example of a situation where both sides of the isle either omitted information, lied, or spun an event was the confrontation between Covington Catholic School student Nick Sandman and Native American Elder Nathan Phillips. This event is an example of something I and many others would call non-news. In the liberal media, people lied about Nathan Phillip’s status as a Vietnam War veteran, omitted the fact that members of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement were using racial slurs, xenophobic statements, and inflammatory rhetoric towards the children from Covington Catholic School, and chose to ignore the other kids besides Nick Sandman who were doing the “tomahawk” which I personally find to be an offensive gesture (Politi). In the conservative media, Nick Sandman was just short of being heralded as a hero (for essentially just attending a field trip), and both Nathan Phillip’s character and credibility was attacked. Both sides blew up this incident into a major story before videos from alternate angles were ever released (Gill). This is one event in recent times that I somewhat succumbed to the initial liberal media bias

In conclusion, I would argue that most of the mainstream-media content that reaches the average reader has left-leaning bias, but while left-leaning bias is common, right-leaning bias is just as if not more common and staunch among the news outlets where it is prevalent. Even in writing this essay I had to reexamine articles I thought had said one thing or another in the past, because of bias. Bias is everywhere and it is extremely important to be vigilant against its potential influences over your worldview and outlook on life.

Business Ethics: Genetic Modification, Environmental Sustainability, Energy Efficiency And Gender Bias

Question: 1

The introduction:

The term genetically modified (GM), as it is commonly used, refers to the transfer of genes between organisms using a series of laboratory techniques for cloning genes, splicing DNA segments together, and inserting genes into cells. Collectively, these techniques are known as recombinant DNA technology. Other terms used for GM plants or foods derived from them are genetically modified organism (GMO), genetically engineered (GE), biopesticide, herbicide, or antibiotic resistance to other organisms would not only put humans at risk, but it would also cause ecological imbalances, allowing previously innocuous plants to grow uncontrolled, thus promoting the spread of disease among both plants and animals. Although the possibility of horizontal gene transfer between GMOs and other organisms cannot be denied, in reality, this risk is considered to be quite low. Horizontal gene transfer occurs naturally at a very low rate and, in most cases, cannot be simulated in an optimized laboratory environment without active modification of the target genome to increase susceptibility.

In contrast, the alarming consequences of vertical gene transfer between GMOs and their wild-type counterparts have been highlighted by studying transgenic fish released into wild populations of the same species. The enhanced mating advantages of the genetically modified fish led to a reduction in the viability of their offspring. Thus, when a new transgene is introduced into a wild fish population, it propagates and may eventually threaten the viability of both the wild-type and the genetically modified organisms.

The conclusion:

GM is a technology that involves inserting DNA into the genome of an organism. To produce a GM plant, new DNA is transferred into plant cells. Usually, the cells are then grown in tissue culture where they develop into plants. The seeds produced by these plants will inherit the new DNA.

The characteristics of all living organisms are determined by their genetic makeup and its interaction with the environment. The genetic makeup of an organism is its genome, which in all plants and animals is made of DNA. The genome contains genes, regions of DNA that usually carry the instructions for making proteins. It is these proteins that give the plant its characteristics. For example, the colour of flowers is determined by genes that carry the instructions for making proteins involved in producing the pigments that colour petals.

Genetic modification of plants involves adding a specific stretch of DNA into the plant’s genome, giving it new or different characteristics.

Question: 2

The introduction:

Environmental sustainability:

Environmental sustainability is responsibly interacting with the planet to maintain natural resources and avoid jeopardizing the ability for future generations to meet their needs. A walk on the beach or a hike in the woods reminds us that our forests, coral reefs, and even our deserts act as examples of sustainable systems.

Environmental sustainability is the capacity to improve the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of the earth’s supporting ecosystems. Environmental sustainability is about stabilizing the currently disruptive relationship between earth’s two most complex systems: human culture and the living world. Many also wonder if it’s possible to utilize business as the catalysing force behind this change because financial success can be tied to ecological and societal success, and vice versa. Individuals have a role to play, but so do institutions that contribute to the cause on a larger scale.

The ways in which we can all live more sustainably can take many forms, such as:

• Reorganizing living conditions in the form of eco-villages, eco-municipalities, and sustainable cities
• Reappraising economic sectors (permaculture, green building, sustainable agriculture) or work practices, such as sustainable architecture
• Developing new technologies (green technologies, renewable energy, etc.)
• Making adjustments in individual lifestyles that conserve natural resources

Concepts and application:

The principles /concerns involved in environmental ethics:

1. Anthropocentrism

It suggests that human beings are the most important beings. All other living beings are but accessories that would assist in their survival. Now, there are two further divisions of anthropocentrism. They are weak anthropocentrism and strong anthropocentrism.

While weak anthropocentrism believes that human beings are the centre because it is only through their perspective that environmental situations can be interpreted.

Strong anthropocentrism, however, believes that human beings are at the centre because they rightfully deserve to be there.

2. Non-Anthropocentrism

As opposed to anthropocentrism, non-anthropocentrism, this principle gives value to every object, every animal in nature. It is a principle that believes in everything that sustains itself in nature.

3. Psychocentrism

Psychocentrism is the principle that believes that human beings hold more value in the environment since their mental capacities are better developed and far more complex than any other element in the environment.

4. Biocentrism

It is a term that holds not only an ecological but also a political value. It is a philosophy that imparts importance to all living beings. In terms of environmental ethics, biocentrism is the principle that ensures the proper balance of ecology on the planet.

5. Moral Consider ability

This, too, is an important principle of environmental ethics. Intrinsic value is added to every being, which makes us consider being moral. Moral consider ability towards a being means that we agree that all our interactions whatsoever with the being is bound by moral laws.

Critical practices /processes adopted by business to showcase that ethical environmental responsibility

Full Cost Accounting

The main idea of environmental ethics is that nature has intrinsic value and shouldn’t be treated merely as a resource to be used up. But traditional accounting doesn’t match up with that vision. It only measures direct monetary costs, with no accounting for things like pollution and environmental waste, which are sometimes referred to as ‘negative externalities’ in economic theory.

To be consistent with environmental ethics, you would need to account for those externalities. One approach is called full cost accounting, or sometimes environmental full cost accounting.

2. Energy Efficiency

Did I just say ‘quick fix’? This next item definitely falls into that category. Simply by reviewing your energy usage and identifying ways to be more efficient, you can help the environment while also saving money.

Use this Better Business Guide to Energy Saving to help you walk through the steps. Basically, you just need to check your office, shop, factory or other workplace for compliance with basic energy common sense. For example:

• Are you using energy-efficient lighting?
• Are your heating and cooling systems properly controlled by thermostats?
• Are windows and doors insulated to stop all that expensive cooling/heating from escaping?
• Is your computer equipment operating efficiently?
• Are you and your employees regularly switching things off when not in use?

9. Resource Usage

We talked about packaging already, but businesses use a lot of other resources. So, examine your practices and see where you can make improvements. For example:

• Can you recycle more?
• Can you use less to begin with?
• Can you go paper free in your office, or at least reduce unnecessary paperwork?

Think less in terms of one-off items and more in terms of repeating processes. For example, if you run a café, a small change like providing food and drinks in reusable instead of disposable containers could make a huge difference over time.A clear environmental policy for your business, incorporating all of the points we’ve discussed, along with any others you want to add. Then you’ll need to support that with staff training and reinforce your commitment by constantly emphasizing the importance of environmental ethics in your communication with employees.

The conclusion:

Global warming, global climate change, deforestation, pollution, resource degradation, the threat of extinction are few of the issues from which our planet is suffering. Environmental ethics are a key feature of environmental studies that establishes the relationship between humans and the earth. With environmental ethics, you can ensure that you are doing your part to keep the environment safe and protected.

Every time that a tree is cut down to make a home or other resources are used, we are using natural resources that are becoming more and sparser to find. It is essential that you do your part to keep the environment protected and free from danger. It is not as difficult to do as you may think so long as you’re willing to make a few simple and easy changes.

With the rapid increase in the world’s population, the consumption of natural resources has increased several times. This has degraded our planet’s ability to provide the services we humans need. The consumption of resources is going at a faster rate than they can naturally replenish. Environmental ethics builds on scientific understanding by bringing human values, moral principles, and improved decision making into conversation with science.

Question: 3(a)

The introduction:

Gender bias

Gender bias or discrimination may be defined as differentiating people as male and female on the basis of gender or gender-based functions and treating them uniquely in the matter of social function, or treating them unjustly in the distribution or burdens and benefits in society. Throughout history, Women have always struggled to gain equality, respect and the same rights as men. This has been difficult because of patriarchy, an ideology in which men are superior to women and have the right to rule women. In order to fight patriarchy, feminism and feminist theory was born.

Concepts and application:

The factors influence the attitude of an individual towards gender bias:

Poor medical care

In addition to limited access to contraception, women overall receive lower-quality medical care than men. This is linked to other gender inequality reasons such as a lack of education and job opportunities, which results in more women being in poverty. They are less likely to be able to afford good healthcare.

Lack of religious freedom

When religious freedom is attacked, women suffer the most. According to the World Economic Forum, when extremist ideologies (such as ISIS) come into a community and restrict religious freedom, gender inequality gets worse.

Lack of political representation

Despite progress in this area over the years, women are still grossly underrepresented in government and the political process. This means that certain issues that female politicians tend to bring up – such as parental leave and childcare, pensions, gender equality laws and gender-based violence – are often neglected.

Racism

It would be impossible to talk about gender inequality without talking about racism. It affects what jobs women of color are able to get and how much they’re paid, as well as how they are viewed by legal and healthcare systems. Gender inequality and racism have been closely-linked for a long time.

Societal mind-sets

It’s less tangible than some of the other causes on this list, but the overall mind-set of a society has a significant impact on gender inequality. How society determines the differences and value of men vs. women plays a starring role in every arena, whether it’s employment or the legal system or healthcare.

The conclusion:

The differences in the intellectual strengths and weakness of the sexes cannot example more than a minute proportion of the difference in positions that males and females hold in our society. It might explain, for example, there should be more males than females in professions like architecture and engineering, professions that may require visual-spatial ability, but even in these professions, the magnitude of the differences in numbers cannot be explained by the genetic theory-spatial ability. This theory suggests that half as many females are as genetically advantaged in this area as males, which would account for the lower average scores of females in tests of visual-spatial ability, but cannot account for the fact that in most countries there are not merely twice as many males as females in architecture one engineering, but at least ten times as many.

Question: 3(b)

The introduction:

Business Ethics:

Business ethics is the study of appropriate business policies and practices regarding potentially controversial subjects including corporate governance, insider trading, bribery, discrimination, corporate social responsibility, and fiduciary responsibilities. The law often guides business ethics, but at other times business ethics provide a basic guideline that businesses can choose to follow to gain public approval. Business ethics ensure that a certain basic level of trust exists between consumers and various forms of market participants with businesses. For example, a portfolio manager must give the same consideration to the portfolios of family members and small individual investors. These kinds of practices ensure the public receives fair treatment.

Concepts and application:

Business Ethics benefitted me as a person or a manager:

1. Ethics programs help avoid criminal acts “of omission” and can lower fines.

Ethics programs tend to detect ethical issues and violations early on so they can be reported or addressed. In some cases, when an organization is aware of an actual or potential violation and does not report it to the appropriate authorities, this can be considered a criminal act, e.g., in business dealings with certain government agencies, such as the Defence Department.

2. Ethics programs help manage values associated with quality management, strategic planning and diversity management — this benefit needs far more attention.

Ethics programs identify preferred values and ensuring organizational behaviours are aligned with those values. This effort includes recording the values, developing policies and procedures to align behaviours with preferred values, and then training all personnel about the policies and procedures. This overall effort is very useful for several other programs in the workplace that require behaviours to be aligned with values, including quality management, strategic planning and diversity management.

3. Ethics programs promote a strong public image.

Attention to ethics is also strong public relations — admittedly, managing ethics should not be done primarily for reasons of public relations. But, frankly, the fact that an organization regularly gives attention to its ethics can portray a strong positive to the public. People see those organizations as valuing people more than profit, as striving to operate with the utmost of integrity and honour.

4. Overall benefits of ethics programs:

Managing ethical values in the workplace legitimizes managerial actions, strengthens the coherence and balance of the organization’s culture, improves trust in relationships between individuals and groups, supports greater consistency in standards and qualities of products, and cultivates greater sensitivity to the impact of the enterprise’s values and messages.

The conclusion:

The modern idea of business ethics as a field is relatively new, but how to ethically conduct business has been widely debated since bartering and trading first arose. Aristotle even proposed a few of his own ideas about business ethics.Business ethics are important for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, it keeps the business working within the boundaries of the law, ensuring that they aren’t committing crimes against their employees, customers, consumers at large, or other parties. However, the business also has a number of other advantages that will help them succeed if they are aware of business ethics.

Cognitive Bias In Decision-making Process

If faced with a dire decision to be made in but a fraction of second, could this action be trusted to be rational and logical? The human brain, when faced with such situations, tends to take mental shortcuts to make dire decisions and judgments based on the context of information the brain is given. These mental shortcuts, or cognitive biases, cause the decision-making process to be faster but cannot be relied upon for objectivity. Often the brain prefers not to take the time to adequately assess the situation at hand in order to make a decision. This is how cognitive biases form, which can be detrimental to one’s situation. These biases impair an individual’s judgment, causing them to make poor decisions based in subjectivity.

All humans alike struggle to produce creative but practical solutions in which is needed to go about tackling problematic situations that occur as well as complex dilemmas. For one to fully trust their decision and resolution, they must use a rational thought process in order to produce the best possible output. However, what defines a “rational thought” differs from person to person. In accordance with Analytic Processes for School Leaders “Rational thinking is the ability to consider the relevant variables of a situation and to access, organize, and analyze relevant information (e.g., facts, opinions, judgments, and data) to arrive at a sound conclusion” (Richetti and Tregoe). In this context, rationality represents the human ability to think without bias and consider all available possibilities. In order to preserve consistency, this will be the definition of rationality used throughout this essay.

The premise of cognitive bias is inherently irrational. Cognitive biases cause repetitive irrational acts due to subconscious desires for certain answers and decisions. The most common bias being confirmation bias, which is the tendency to interpret information in a way that confirms one’s prior beliefs. A bias created from an individual’s refusal to accept that they are wrong. This bias is most commonly used with elections, in which parties only put forth pleasant information about their candidate while sweeping unpleasant information under the rug. Conservatism bias, much like confirmation bias, is the main bias among individuals. Conservatism is the disposition to refuse to compromise one’s beliefs when given new information. When given one complex solution and one easily explained solution many chose the easily explained solution. People don’t want to accept what they don’t understand. As Thoreau once put it “[a] man receives only what he is ready to receive…” (Thoreau)

When faced with major decisions individuals tackle cognitive biases in which they must utilize multiple objective sources of information in order to prevent bias from causing an irrational judgment. If an individual finds themselves ignoring information that is hard to comprehend or taking bits of data to confirm prejudice while dismissing other data then it might be time to take a better look at things. One must take the time to ask for an opposing opinion and not simply dismiss information just because it may prove them to be wrong. The best way to approach one’s own bias is to ask questions that oppose their beliefs. The best thing to do when understanding information is not possible is to go to someone else who does understand it and get their opinion. Many refuse to accept that they don’t understand something but they don’t realize that if they do they can begin to understand it by getting someone to explain it to them.

Cognitive bias is used by the human brain unconsciously and can lead to irrational behavioral decisions causing misconception in information and judgment. Everyone is susceptible to cognitive biases rather they accept it or not but if one can recognize when they are using a cognitive bias then they can then begin to confront it. Recognizing a bias is just as simple as understanding the actions that one is taking and from there start to analyze information from all aspects, gain viewpoints from a third party. Finding all the information related on that subject can help one avoid the most common cognitive bias. The better one is at understanding all the information and aspects of a situation the more sound the solution will be. “Don’t answer your questions before even starting your research.”

Case Study of The New York Times and The Guardian Concerning Using Bias to Influence Its Readers

To what extent do The New York Times and The Guardian use bias to influence its readers on The Trump Administration Family Separation Policy?

Introduction

Nowadays, News is increasingly and ironically omitting the actual news. Since the publishers have relatively easy means of control, they dictate, and disseminate news to promote certain events. In this regard, it is essential for us to determine what is biased and what is not in the information we receive. I believe reading only one newspaper article places us in a bubble where, we only learn about what editors of one publication choose to report and get carried away with the bias involved in it . Even though it is impossible to avoid bias in media, it is still possible for us to find out which part of information is biased and which is not through analysing the information received, or by comparing it with other sources of information. This leads me to my research question – To what extent do The New York Times and The Guardian use bias to influence its readers on The Trump Administration Family Separation Policy?

Although the newspapers – The New York Times & The Guardian are well established and trustworthy, there is sometimes bias involved in these newspaper articles as well. In this essay, I will focus on the textual bias adapted by the two sources mentioned above by doing a thorough comparative analysis of both the texts. This will be achieved by referring to similar context articles, that is, articles on Trump Administration Family Separation Policy, widely referred to as ‘Zero Tolerance Policy’ published through The New York Times and The Guardian. Through this analysis I will know how I am being persuaded into believing things which are not true and be a discerning reader. In order to achieve this, we need to know what bias means. ‘Bias is the inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair’.

The articles primarily deliver information about the Trump Organisation Family partition arrangement portrayed by the Trump Administration as part of its ‘Zero Tolerance Policy’, was a part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s movement strategy. Under this zero tolerance policy, government experts isolated children from their parents, relatives, or other adults who accompanied them while crossing the U.S. – Mexico border. The policy was to prosecute all adults arrested in the U.S. – Mexico border, and sending the guardians to government prisons, and setting children and newborns under the supervision of the U.S. Division of Health and Human Services.

Table – Comparison of basic information of news articles published in The New York Times and The Guardian

News – Migrant families being separated at the U.S border[image: ]

The New York Times – Published on June 16, 2018

The Guardian – Published on June 18, 2018

The New York Times dedicated the maximum number of paragraphs – 42 (forty two), to this news story while The Guardian covered it in 21 (twenty one) paragraphs. The New York Times carried four pictures to support its story while The Guardian used only one picture. The New York Times has had the maximum word count of about 2040 words were as The Guardian only had 830 words.

The news story was contributed mainly by the staff members of each of the two newspapers Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D.Shear for The New York Times, and Amanda Holpuch and Lauren Gambino for The Guardian. With respect to the pictures The New York Times obtained these from John Moore, Tom Brenner and Jennifer Whitney, while The Guardian only obtained one picture from Leila Macor.

The analysis I have made below shows that both the newspapers gave almost equal importance to this news story. However, The Guardian delivered most of the information in fewer paragraphs, pictures, and words when compared to The New York Times.

Analysis

On the 16th of June 2018, Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D.Shear wrote an article titled ‘How Trump came to Enforce a Practice of Separating Migrant Families’

The New York Times delivers news in the form of short paragraphs contributing to an insightful reading and not missing out on important points. In general, The introductory lines of an article play a prominent role in shaping the readers thoughts. In this specific article, The first few lines give away most important information that is ‘Trump discouraging immigrants from unlawfully entering the united states’. This allows the reader to have a comprehensive understanding of the article and creates intrigue thus motivating the reader to read further. Although there is no lead for this news article, most of the paragraphs contain answers to so-called ‘five W’s and an H’ – Who, What, When, Where, Why and How allowing the readers to experience as many perspectives as possible.

The use of morphological features (ink verbs, auxiliaries, pronouns) and compositional features (carefully selected vocabulary, variety of topics and a wide use of quotations) throughout this news article influences the way readers process the news story. The New York Times narrows down the topic by breaking it down into categories where it delivers a general information – Why Family Separation Policy?/Why Zero Tolerance Policy? – at the top of the article and later slowly focusing on opposing this policy. This has been put in (successive) paragraphs where they are stepped down every paragraph until the article focuses on opposing this Family Separation Policy. Therefore Many verbal reactions of different famous people such as ‘disgraceful’ from the evangelical supporter Franklin Graham, ‘This is not a zero tolerance policy, this is a zero humanity policy, and we can’t let it go on; Ripping children out of their parents arms to inflict harm on the child to influence the parents is unacceptable’ from Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon and ‘I was pissed, and still am; I thought that he had a shocking disregard for due process’ from Ben Johnson, the executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association etc. and a few more verbal reactions were put up in order to let the readers know what a lot of people are feeling about this policy. This not only informs the readers about other people’s feelings but also persuades them to oppose this policy as Trump administration and this policy are portrayed negatively by using many verbal reactions recursively throughout the article. This article is mostly biased since the writer doesn’t focus on the main motto of this Trump administration Family Separation Policy (Why Trump Administration Family Separation Policy? – To stop immigrants from illegally entering the country and prevent terrorists from entering the country) but rather comments on How this policy is taking place (how they are separating children from their parents / guardians who have accompanied them while crossing the border). Constantly portraying Trump negatively in all the ways possible throughout the article might make the reader conclude that his policy is negative and serve the purpose of this article – Persuading the targeted audience who are mainly U.S. & Mexico citizens since they are in the action field to oppose this policy.

Where-as The Guardian published its article on the 18th of June 2018. Amanda Holpuch and Lauren Gambino wrote titled this article ‘why are families being separated at the U.S border?’

In comparison to the New York Times, The Guardian has used a question and answer format to effectively deliver its information to the audience. The writers used syntactical features like elliptical constructions and interrogative sub-headings to serve the main purpose of this news article – Informing the readers about the Trump Administration Family Separation Policy. Interrogative sub-headings such as ‘Why are children being separated from their families?’, ‘What happens to the children?’, ‘Will the Trump administration change its policy?’ etc and a few more like these are helping the writers frame their paragraphs in such a way where they provide a detailed – to the point – information to the reader. Moreover, The complexity of sentences used in this article too was simple and concise, helping it deliver as much information as possible and making it a lot easier for the readers to skim through and understand.

The writers of The Guardian might have followed the ‘Inverted Pyramid’ structure, as the lead of this news article begins the story with an eye-catching tale rather than just stating the central facts. The lead – ‘The Trump administration’s ‘zero-tolerance’ policy has led to almost 2000 children being separated from their families’ mainly consists of who, what and possibly when this even happened, while the other paragraphs / answers to the questions refer to what, where, why and how. This in turn hooks the reader’s attention and encourages them to read further to know more about the situation.

‘In April, the US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, announced a “zero-tolerance” policy, stating “our goal is to prosecute every case that is brought to us”. Under the Trump administration’s new enforcement policy, every migrant who crosses the border illegally – even those seeking asylum in the US – is subject to criminal prosecution.’

The introduction here plays a crucial role as it sets the tone for the following story. The writers have specifically involved what the US attorney general, Jeff Sessions had said about the zero tolerance policy in the very beginning of the introduction to engage the readers instantly. The statement ‘Every migrant who illegally crosses the border is subject to criminal prosecution’ basically provides the reader with a gist of what this whole story is about. Therefore, even if the readers leave the story at any point, they would still seem to understand the main idea of this news story despite not having all the details of the story. The introductory paragraph and the lead statement go hand in hand delivering the most important information and enticing the readers into committing to the story. The rest of the paragraphs were also given equal importance as the opening paragraph. After the introduction the writers are amplifying the story, adding new information, providing a detailed explanation to the readers about the policy. This helps in making the story smooth and seamless.

Moreover, The writers here seem to use active tense in the news writing, particularly in the introduction. Sentences like ‘Jeff Sessions announced’, ‘Migrants who cross the border illegally are subject to criminal prosecution’ etc. and a few more make it a lot faster and immediate for the reader to read. Since it is the most straightforward way to present the story, it helps create a clear image in the reader’s mind of who is doing what. This makes the news article much easier to understand.

The headline is the first thing that a person reads in the news article. The task of headline and lead in any prototypical news story is to give the most central, essential and relevant information of the story. Although there is no lead in The New York Times, the headline ‘How Trump Came to Enforce a Practice of Separating Migrant Families’ conveys as much information as the lead, providing the reader a gist of what trump was doing, expressing the very core of the important information ‘Separation of Migrant Families’. Due to this articles summary like nature and its position as the initial elements in the news article, the headline orients the story in a specific direction, basically providing a super-summary of the news article and making it much easier for the reader to understand just while they look at the headline. The writers of The New York Times also seem to use longer sentences that play on the topicality of the issue to attract the readers.

Although the writer uses a relatively short headline making it easier for the readers to quickly skim through, it still is long enough for them to be able to understand the facts of this news article. Moreover, since this topic is of a temporal context, it helps in arousing the readers interest and makes them want to read the entire article. However, the headline of this news article is equated with the text, when it should rather be viewed as one possible explanation. This sort of tends to reflect the writer’s perspective making the headline biased.

In addition the headline of the news article and context, history, and instances of previous events are included to convey the background information relating to the main news story.

‘Under a 1997 consent decree known as the Flores settlement, unaccompanied children could be held in immigration detention for only a short period of time; in 2016, a federal judge ruled that the settlement applied to families as well, effectively requiring that they be released within 20 days. Many were released — some with GPS ankle bracelets to track their movements — and asked to return for a court date sometime in the future.’

‘It was Mr. Bush, who had firsthand experience with the border as governor of Texas and ran for president as a “compassionate conservative,” who initiated the “zero tolerance” approach for illegal immigration on which Mr. Trump’s policy is modelled.’

‘Mr. Obama’s administration employed the program at the height of the migration crisis as well, although it generally did not treat first-time border crossers as priorities for prosecution, and it detained families together in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody — administrative, rather than criminal, detention.’

The following instances like these which are alluding to many famous persons upon the acts (policies) they have carried out in the recent years, are portraying Trump’s policy to be the worst and most cruel among all of them. President Donald Trump’s policy was to separate children from their families or anyone who accompanied them when crossing the U.S – Mexico border and detain them under the act of criminal detention. This has happened for almost about 2 months where the parents / Guardians were held in federal jail while their children were placed in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). George Bush and Barack Obama (the 43rd and 44th President of United states respectively) on the other hand, have also followed a similar type ‘Zero Tolerance Policy’. But they detained the families TOGETHER under the Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody administrative. Bush has also released the families within 20 days of time with a few GPS ankle bracelets to track their movements. The writer has specifically made a comparison between President Trump’s policy and Obama’s policy & Bush’s policy to effectively show how Trump has taken ‘Zero Tolerance Policy’ to the next level where he was separating children from their families to influence the parents to not illegally cross the border again. This doesn’t only inform the readers about how Barack Obama and George Bush have dealt with this sort of situation but also helps in persuading the readers to go against President Trump and oppose his policy of separating the children from their families.

The headline – ‘why are families being separated at the US border?’ and the lead – ‘The Trump administrations Zero – Tolerance policy has led to almost 2000 children being separated from their families’ of the Guardian however, summarise the most important and relevant information of the story. Although the headline here is shorter of the two (headline and lead statement) not conveying as much information as the lead, it acts as an abstract of the abstract in the form of a question to hook the reader’s attention in their first glance at the article. The information in the headline ‘families being separated at the U.S. border’ is contained in the lead statement as well to reinforce main idea of this article – Informing the readers about ‘Trump Administration Family Separation Policy’. In addition to this, the lead statement also includes other central pieces of information besides the absolute most important information. The number of children – ‘2000 children being separated from their families’ is included in the lead to strengthen the idea and maintain the readers attention until the end of the article. Hence, the lead in this article focuses the story in a particular direction. It forms the lens through which the remainder of the story is viewed, while the headline summarises and focuses the story indirectly even more.

As stated earlier, The Guardian followed an Inverted-Pyramid style where most important information of the news story is delivered in the beginning. Hence, the lead in this article focuses the story in a particular direction by formulating the most important points of the story. This functions as a kind of summary of the news story.

The function of any news article’s language is to inform and entertain people to present them with a particular ideology and interpretation of events. The lexical and semantic choices of news used in The New York Times and The Guardian have certain characteristics of their own.

The writers of The New York Times article use long and complex sentences which act as an expressive means to hook the readers’ attention and make them understand better about the issue being described. In addition to the complicated sentences and expressions in line with the formal nature of this news article, the writers also use vague and exaggerated expressions in a few particular paragraphs that portray Trump to be a negative character.

‘Inside the Trump administration, current and former officials say, there is considerable unease about the policy, which is regarded by some charged with carrying it out as unfeasible in practice and questionable morally. Kirstjen Nielsen, the current homeland security secretary, has clashed privately with Mr. Trump over the practice, sometimes inviting furious lectures from the president that have pushed her to the brink of resignation.’

Here, the writers tend to use ‘inviting furious lectures’, an hyperbolic expression, while informing about the argument that Mr. Trump and Ms. Kristjen Nielsen have when discussing about the family separation policy. President Trump was portrayed as a bad person when Kristjen was on the verge of resigning her job.

The Guardian however, uses a relatively formal and impersonal language throughout the article. Unlike The New York Times, An objective tone is achieved here through the use of impersonal language. In addition to the complex sentences and exaggerated expressions used in The New York Times, the news stories are delivered in the past tense which in general have a reflective nature, thus giving a greater strength to their claims and content except for the headlines, which is in the present tense, that is, as an effective way to show immediacy. Throughout this article, the writers use more of an active voice than a passive voice, making the article a faster-paced narrative and as persuasive as possible, engaging the readers in it.

There is also an effective use of the pictures to back up its claims which have been stated in the article. For instance,

‘But advocates inside the administration, most prominently Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s senior policy adviser, never gave up on the idea. Last month, facing a sharp uptick in illegal border crossings, Mr. Trump ordered a new effort to criminally prosecute anyone who crossed the border unlawfully — with few exceptions for parents traveling with their minor children.’

The above paragraph has later been backed up by this picture where, Stephen Miller, an immigrant hard-liner who is president Trump’s senior policy advisor has expressed no misgivings about the new policy. Since the entire article states the writers opinion and many others verbal reactions that[image: ] are mostly against Trump and his policy, the readers might get carried away with the article and might assume anyone who is in support of this policy of separating children from their families are negative/bad characters. Therefore, it is not only Trump, but also his advisors like Stephen Miller, and others who support Trump are portrayed negatively to the readers.

The writers of the Guardian on the other hand, use inverted declarative sentence structure in the article. For instance,

‘In the shelters, children are offered toys and books. But Colleen Kraft, the president, American Academy of Pediatrics, who toured a shelter in a border town in Texas, described children in distress.’.

The writers over here instead of stating ‘Coleen Kraft, the president of American Academy of Paediatrics described the children in distress when she toured a shelter in a border town in Texas’, says that ‘Colleen Kraft, the president, American Academy of Pediatrics, who toured a shelter in a border town in Texas, described children in distress.’. Here the inverted sentences are simply a reverse of the word order without losing its meaning. As it can be seen, the words in these sentences are not disordered randomly but instead the subject is switched with another sentence part. This in turn stalls the readers attention as it would be more difficult for the reader to understand the word order and make them think about the message conveyed.

Overall, the language used by the writers in The New York Times article may be said to be a political discourse which has its own style and vocabulary while The Guardian may be said to be a neutral news article as there is no involvement of the (writers perspective) / (writers comments) anywhere in it.

Bibliography

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_administration_family_separation_policy
2. http://time.com/5314769/family-separation-policy-donald-trump/