Consult Quality News Sources

To become an informed voter, you need to make sure that the news sources you choose to read, listen to or watch are reporting minimally biased and factual information. Every written or spoken word contains bias. It cannot be avoided. However, you want to consume information that at least tries to mitigate or reduce bias. You may have seen tools like the media bias chart, which plots major news outlets according to political bias and strength of reporting. This and other similar charts are subjective, but can be helpful in thinking about where some of your favorite news sources might fit in the larger news media landscape. You are looking for your news sources to report original facts and to be fairly balanced in their biases. You can learn more about specific news sources by using lateral reading, a strategy in which you leave the source to learn about the source. See what you can learn about your news outlet based on what other sources have said about it. 

Screenshot of the Media Bias Chart

It is important to also make the distinction between news articles and opinion pieces, which may take the form of editorials.

Opinion pieces

o   will not present you with a diverse set of viewpoints, but instead will promote one viewpoint

o   may include some facts but their purpose is to argue for a particular point of view

o   are sometimes tricky to identify online, because they are not labelled consistently across web publications

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Image created on Canva from editorial opinion pieces

Opinion pieces and editorials aren’t inherently bad, but when trying to educate yourself on the issues important to you it’s crucial to form your own opinions using verifiable factual news. Reading another person’s opinion on an issue can certainly help you sort through your own thoughts, but it is important to identify it as just an opinion, and NOT objective news reporting.

It is also important to consult news sources that do not lean heavily to one side of the political spectrum. When you do choose news sources that veer strongly toward one political slant, you place yourself into an echo chamber which inhibits you from forming your own opinions from objective facts.

Watch this 2 minute video on "What is an Echo Chamber?" 

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