1. ACCURACY IN MEDIA
Detecting and Countering Media Bias
July 2014 – Presented to Doctors for Disaster Preparedness – Knoxville, TN

2. Beginnings
• Accuracy in Media was founded by Reed Irvine in 1969 as
a watchdog group dedicated to exposing, and challenging
slanted news coverage while teaching consumers to think
critically about the news.
• Efforts to correct media bias included:
• Television panel discussions
• Attending annual shareholder meetings of major papers
• A weekly column syndicated to some 100 papers
• Letters to the editor
• Purchasing advertising space

3. “We’ve fought the good fight.
Someone had to start pointing out
there were serious errors being
made in the media—and a lot of
them were the fault of the
ideological biases of the reporters
and editors.”
Reed Irvine, Founder

4. Media transformation

5. Days Past
• The media landscape in the 1960’s was completely
different than it is today. ABC, NBC, and CBS were the
only news sources on television and their programs all
aired at the same time for 15 to 30 minutes.
• The only National Newspaper was the Wall Street Journal
which was primarily a business publication.
• The New York Times and Washington Post were
important papers and were instrumental then, more so
than today, in setting the national news agenda.

6. Social Media is the New Media
• Social media has replaced print media as the
go-to source for information
• Breaking or instant news is available on these
platforms
• Having a social media presence is key for one’s
brand

7. 60%
40%
Americans that use Social
Networking Sites
Use Social Net. Sites
Do not Use Social Net. Sites
34%
66%
Social Networking Site
Users that use it for
Political Activities
Use Social Networking Sites but Not
for Poitical Activities
Use Social Networking Sites for
Political Activities
Pew Research Center reports that 39% of all Americans use social media sites
for political activities. Younger users are more politically active than others.

8. Legacy of Leadership
• Ideologically, AIM paved the way for
conservative news networks and watchdogs.
• Praise and criticism followed

9. “AIM really was the fountainhead of the effort
to denounce the liberal media, and create the
image of the mainstream media as very liberal,
and that effort proved quite successful.”
Alex S. Jones, Director
of Shorenstein Center,
Harvard Kennedy School of
Government

10. Letter from the Washington Post
To Reed Irvine
Mrs. Graham has spoken for all of us here at
The Washington Post in her letter to you,
answering your latest “newsletter”.
You have revealed yourself as a miserable,
carping, retromingent vigilante, and I for one am
sick of wasting my time in communicating with
you.
Benjamin C. Bradlee
June 9, 1978

11. The Left Wants to Control Speech
• The left, through groups like Center for American
Progress, are calling for new government regulation of the
news and the information we receive.
• Because they no longer have a monopoly on the news
and they don’t like being challenged, they talk about
localism and diversity of ownership and complain of
media consolidation.
• Bias still persists in the media.

12. Examples of Media Bias
Major Scandals
• IRS targeting scandal
• Benghazi
• Veterans’ Affairs scandal
Others
• NBC’s coverage of George Zimmerman
• Fast and Furious
• Climate Change/Global Warming

13. IRS Targeting Scandal
• The mainstream media was
forced to cover it when it
broke, but they have not
covered recent revelations
of hard drives being
destroyed and information
purposely hidden by IRS
officials like Lois Lerner

14. Picture from commonsenseevaluation.com

15. Benghazi
• The media has refused to
acknowledge how an
American ambassador and his
personnel were left to die
• Few mentions were made
about how the Obama
administration refused to
release their PR spin on the
Benghazi attacks in e-mails to
and from the White House
• Hillary Clinton refuses to take
responsibility today

16. Veterans’ affairs
• The media has buried the
scandal since it was discovered
there was a cover-up
• Obama has known about it
since 2008, when he took
office, and the media has not
called him out
• Veterans still do not receive
adequate care and could cost
American taxpayers millions, if
not billions, in the next decade
to fix

17. Other examples
• NBC’s coverage of George
Zimmerman, where 911 tapes
were altered
• Fast and Furious scandal,
where Border Patrol agent
was murdered by cartel
members with U.S. arms
• Climate Change is the NEW
Global Warming term
• Visit AIM.org for
groundbreaking work on these
scandals

18. GlobalWarming

19. Funding and Political Power
• From 1998—2009 $25 billion of federal funding was
collected for Climate Change research. Researchers who
questioned human created climate change did not receive
the same grant money for research projects.
• If the Federal Government is arguing that climate change
is caused by humans, then the researchers will produce
results that grant this theory true.

20. The liberal media labels
dissenters as out of touch,
crazy, deniers

21. The President Bashes Global Warming Skeptics

22. Following the Crowd
• Climate change theories have changed over time and the
liberal media influences people to go along with their
beliefs regardless of scientific errors made by journalists
and their dependence on human-interest stories, and
other causes of distortion.

23. 1970’s

24. 2007

25. Politicians Criticize “Deniers”
“It reminds me in some ways of the debate taking
place in this country and around the world in the late
1930s – there were people – who said ‘don’t worry!
Hitler’s not real! It’ll disappear!”
-U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders

26. Journalists Join Them
“At its core, global warming
denial is like Holocaust
denial, an assault on
common decency.”
-David Fiderer

27. “An Inconvenient Truth is so
convincing that it makes
opposers of the argument as
credible as Holocaust deniers.”
-Jon Niccum, Lawrence
Journal-World (2006)
They Promote Propaganda

28. Chris Matthews

29. Celebrities Influence Public Opinion Too
“Some people don’t believe in climate
warming—like those who don’t believe there
was a Holocaust
– Paul McCartney

30. Fracking

31. Fracking Fraud
• The media reported that methane migration was always
directly tied to natural gas drilling but methane migration
has been a problem in northeastern Pennsylvania for
decades and it is probably due to faulty well casing.
• The documentary “Gasland” was part of an effort to get
people up in arms. The other side of the story is told in
Fracknation.

33. Americans are Losing Trust in the Media

35. Hillary’s “Dead Broke” Comment

36. Become Your Own Watchdog
• Read or watch both sides
• Notice who covers what and
what things are left out
• Look for loaded words and
terminology
• Where is the story located?
• How long was the story
covered?
• You can learn to recognize and
correct media bias

37. Contact us!
4350 East West
Highway
Suite 555
Bethesda, MD 20814
(202) 364-4401
E-mail: info@aim.org
WWW.AIM.ORG
@AccuracyInMedia
Accuracy in Media
AimAccuracy
Accuracy in Media
Accuracy in Media