Editing Media bias (section)

== History ==
{{See also|Media bias in the United States # History}}
[[John Milton]]'s 1644 pamphlet ''[[Areopagitica, a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing]]'' was one of the first publications advocating [[freedom of the press]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Reading John Milton’s Areopagitica in the information age {{!}} Aeon Essays |url=https://aeon.co/essays/reading-john-miltons-areopagitica-in-the-information-age# |access-date=2025-02-08 |website=Aeon |language=en}}</ref>

In the 19th century, journalists began to recognize the concept of unbiased reporting as an integral part of [[journalistic ethics]]. This coincided with the rise of journalism as a powerful social force. Even today, the most conscientiously objective [[journalist]]s cannot avoid accusations of bias.<ref>{{cite book | last=Jacquette | first=Dale | title=Journalistic Ethics: Moral Responsibility in the Media | publisher=Prentice Hall | publication-place=Upper Saddle River, NJ | date=2007 | isbn=978-0-13-182539-0 | page=}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=March 2024}}

Like newspapers, the broadcast media (radio and television) have been used as a mechanism for [[propaganda]] from their earliest days, a tendency made more pronounced by the initial ownership of [[Broadcast license|broadcast spectrum]] by national governments. Although a process of media deregulation has placed the majority of the western broadcast media in private hands, there still exists a strong government presence, or even monopoly, in the broadcast media of many countries across the globe. At the same time, the [[concentration of media ownership]] in private hands, and frequently amongst a comparatively small number of individuals, has also led to accusations of media bias.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}

There are many examples of accusations of bias being used as a political tool, sometimes resulting in government censorship.{{Original research inline|date=March 2024}}{{Globalize inline|date=March 2024}}
* In the [[United States]], in 1798, Congress passed the [[Alien and Sedition Acts]], which prohibited newspapers from publishing "false, scandalous, or malicious writing" against the government, including any public opposition to any law or presidential act.  This act was in effect until 1801.<ref>{{citation |author1=Virginia. General Assembly. House Of Delegates |author2=James Madison |author3=J. W Randolph |title=The Virginia report of 1799 to 1800, touching the Alien and sedition laws; together with the Virginia resolutions of, the debate and proceedings thereon in the House of delegates of Virginia, and several other documents illustrative of the report and resolutions |location=Richmond |publisher=J. W. Randolph |year=1850 |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/16007972/}}</ref>
* During the [[American Civil War]], President [[Abraham Lincoln]] accused newspapers in the [[Border states (American Civil War)|border states]] of bias in favor of the [[American South|Southern]] cause, and ordered many newspapers closed.<ref>{{cite web | last=Ewers | first=Justin | title=Revoking Civil Liberties: Lincoln's Constitutional Dilemma | website=US News & World Report | date=February 10, 2009 | url=https://www.usnews.com/news/history/articles/2009/02/10/revoking-civil-liberties-lincolns-constitutional-dilemma |quote=Neely, for one, believes Lincoln probably understood what had happened: The state's Republicans had used their newfound war powers not just to shut down newspapers and arrest those they considered disloyal but to intimidate and disenfranchise the Democrats, many of whom supported slavery and some of whom were sympathetic to the Confederacy.}}</ref>
* Antisemitic politicians who favored the United States entering World War II on the Nazi side asserted that the international media were controlled by [[Jew]]s, and that reports of German mistreatment of Jews were biased and without foundation. [[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood]] was accused of Jewish bias, and films such as [[Charlie Chaplin]]’s ''[[The Great Dictator]]'' were offered as alleged proof.<ref>{{cite book | last=Pizzitola | first=Louis | title=Hearst Over Hollywood | publisher=Columbia University Press | publication-place=New York | date=2002 | isbn=0-231-11646-2 | page=}}</ref>
* In the US during the labor union movement and the [[civil rights movement]], newspapers supporting liberal social reform were accused by conservative newspapers of communist bias.<ref>{{cite book | last=Richardson| first=Heather Cox | title=The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Civil War North | publisher=Harvard University Press | publication-place=Cambridge, Mass | date=2001 | isbn=978-0-674-00637-9 | page=}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last=Estes | first=Steve | title=I Am a Man!: Race, Manhood, and the Civil Rights Movement | publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press | publication-place=Chapel Hill | date=2005 | isbn=978-0-8078-2929-5 | page=}}</ref>  [[Film]] and [[television]] media were accused of bias in favor of mixing of the races, and many television programs with racially mixed casts, such as ''[[I Spy (1965 TV series)|I Spy]]'' and ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek]]'', were not aired on Southern stations.<ref>{{cite book | last=Nichols | first=Nichelle | title=Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories | publisher=Berkley | date=1995 | isbn=978-1-57297-011-3 | page=}}</ref>
* During the war between the United States and [[North Vietnam]], Vice President [[Spiro Agnew]] accused newspapers of anti-American bias, and in a famous speech delivered in [[San Diego]] in 1970, called anti-war protesters "the nattering nabobs of negativism."<ref>{{cite AV media | title=William Safire Oral History Interview | website=C-SPAN.org | date=March 27, 2008 | url=https://www.c-span.org/video/?300984-1/william-safire-oral-history-interview | time=1:24:00 |time-caption=Discusses quote around}}</ref>

Not all accusations of bias are political. Science writer [[Martin Gardner]] has accused the entertainment media of [[anti-science]] bias. He claimed that television programs such as ''[[The X-Files]]'' promote superstition.<ref name=":6">{{cite book | last=Gardner | first=Martin | title=The Night Is Large | publisher=Macmillan | date=1997-07-15 | isbn=978-0-312-16949-7 | page=}}</ref> In contrast, the [[Competitive Enterprise Institute]], which is funded by businesses, accuses the media of being biased in favor of science and against business interests, and of credulously reporting science that shows that greenhouse gasses cause global warming.<ref>{{cite book | last=Bailey | first=Ronald | title=Global Warming and Other Eco-myths: How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to Death | publisher=Prima Lifestyles | publication-place=New York, NY | date=2002 | isbn=978-0-7615-3660-4 | page=}}</ref>