Invitation to a Lenten Discipline: James and Media Bias

Having a hard time deciding on your Lenten discipline this year? Look no further--I have one based on teachings from the Letter of James: 

Burning palms for Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent

Let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. For human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness (1:19b-20)...If someone thinks he is religious yet does not bridle his tongue, and so deceives his heart, his religion is futile (1:26-27)...The tongue is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people made in God’s image. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. These things should not be so, my brothers and sisters (3:8b-10)...But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, accommodating, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and not hypocritical. And the fruit that consists of righteousness is planted in peace among those who make peace (3:17-18).

As Christians, we are commanded to lead lives of self-control, and as James says, that includes controlling our speech. And, since much of what we speak is an echo of what we hear, that also means controlling our listening. My suggestion to us all is that we take this period of Lenten fasting as an opportunity to fast from (and from repeating and reposting) speech that is not "full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and not hypocritical."

One resource available to help with this is the media bias chart from Ad Fontes Media. This organization was founded in 2018 with a mission to rate the news for reliability and bias to help people navigate the news landscape. Ad Fontes is Latin for “to the source,” because at the heart of what Ad Fontes Media does is look at the source—analyze the very content itself—to rate it. They have created a system of news content ratings that has beneficial applications for all stakeholders in a healthy news media landscape, including consumers, educators, publishers, researchers, advertisers, and social media platforms.

In their words:
The main principle of Ad Fontes (which means “to the source” in Latin) is that they analyze content. They look as closely as possible at individual articles, shows, posts, podcasts, and stories, and analyze the pictures, headlines, and most importantly, sentences and words.

Ad Fontes generates overall news source scores based on scores of individual articles. Each individual article and episode is rated by at least three human analysts with balanced right, left, and center self-reported political viewpoints. That is, at least one person who has rated the article self-identifies as being right-leaning, one as center, and one as left-leaning. Articles and episodes are rated in three-person live panels conducted in shifts over Zoom. Analysts first read each article and rate them on their own, then immediately compare scores. If there are discrepancies in the scores, they discuss and adjust scores if necessary. The three analysts’ ratings are averaged to produce the overall article rating. Sometimes articles are rated by larger panels of analysts for various reasons–for example, if there are outlier scores, the article may be rated by more than three analysts.

The media bias chart looks like this (image at right). Because Ad Fontes analyses more than 1500 different media sources, only a few of the very largest are shown by default—you can search for any source you want to see the rating for. The horizontal axis measures the left-center-middle bias, and the vertical axis measures the "fact-opinion-propaganda" axis.

My suggested Lenten discipline is for the next 40 days to only consume and repeat news from sources you find in the topmost quadrant, the one the chart marks with a green box, and I have shown with the red bracket. Sources in this section of the chart are liberal, centrist, and conservative--but all represent highly reliable new reporting.

On the Media Bias Chart, “opinion” content is lower on the scale than “fact reporting.” This is because the vertical axis on the chart measures something really specific, which is “news value and reliability.” They are measuring how much one can rely on a particular source for actual news–the “who, what, when, and where” as it relates to new information. That doesn't mean opinions are bad--Opinions are important. Advocacy for positions, arguments to move in a particular direction–the very things that move society forward–are framed using opinions about moral issues. Opinions, and having opinions–is great. But opinions are not the same as news. 

They classify opinions as less reliable than news because problems arise when people only consume opinions for their news. Problems also arise when people confuse opinion for news. The specific problems that arise are 1) susceptibility to misinformation and 2) extreme political polarization. Consuming only opinion content for news is like consuming only donuts and fries for food. That’s why they distinguish between things that are more like news and things that are more like opinion.

You can access the interactive media bias chart (the one that lets you search for the "location" of any new source) here, and the simple, a non-interative chart—with just the major news sources listed— here. (Links will open in a new window.)

I hope you will consider my suggestion here. Take a fast from hateful speech, liberal or conservative. Use part of your Lenten meditation time to consider, at the end, the differences that you might notice in your anxiety, your fears, and your views toward your neighbors. Jesus didn't say, "Blessed are the peace-seekers." Jesus said, "Blessed are the peace-makers." My prayer is that we can all find ways during Lent, and always, to work at making peace.