We live in an age of perceived media bias and partisanship, both left, and right, and as such 64% of Americans in a Gallup poll claimed not to trust the media¹. This is not a new phenomenon and was written about by Robert Lois Stevenson in 1881, as part of an essay “The Morality of the Profession of Letters.²” He writes:
“The journalist is not reckoned an important officer; yet judge of the good he might do, the harm he does; judge of it by one instance only: that when we find two journals on the reverse side of politics each, on the same day, openly garbling a piece of news for the interest of its own party, we smile at the discovery (no discovery now!) as over a good joke and pardonable stratagem. Lying so open is scarce lying, it is true; but one of the things that we profess to teach our young is respect for truth; and I cannot think this piece of education will be crowned with any great success, so long as some of us practise and the rest openly approve of public falsehood.”
His words describing the media landscape in 1881 can be applied equally to today, amplified a thousandfold due to 24-hour cable news channels, and we are living the dystopian result of this failure.
At the beginning of his essay, Robert Louis Stevenson argues that the ‘profession of letters’ should not be debated solely on the grounds of money, that writing, like any kind of business, should be honest and useful to humanity. This raises the morality question, which some media outlets, hosts, and the writers that work for them, fail. Consider the following:
The mere body of this ugly matter overwhelms the rare utterances of good men; the sneering, the selfish, and the cowardly are scattered in broad sheets on every table, while the antidote, in small volumes, lies unread upon the shelf.
Sound familiar? It is not my intention to lay blame on any particular network or journalist, there is room for improvement across the board. Robert Louis Stevenson's answer is ‘truth to the fact and a good spirit in the treatment.’ Writers, journalists, due to the nature of their work, have the power to influence public opinion, for today’s news becomes tomorrow’s history, the reader's or viewer's understanding of the world.
There is always a debate, as there should be, whenever the word ‘fact’ is used or held as an ideal. The facts according to who? Stevenson is not referring to any set of facts that could be held by one side or another, rather, general ‘facts of life.’
Those who write have to see that each man’s knowledge is, as near as they can make it, answerable to the facts of life; that he shall not suppose himself an angel or a monster; nor take this world for a hell; nor be suffered to imagine that all rights are concentrated in his own caste or country, or all veracities (truths) in his own parochial creed. Each man should learn what is within him, that he may strive to mend; he must be taught what is without him, that he may be kind to others. It can never be wrong to tell the truth… even if a fact shall discourage or corrupt him, it is still best if he should know it; for it is the world as it is…
To Stevenson, some classes of fact are more important than others. To him, the best facts were ones that celebrated and inspired humanity, appealing to the best in our nature, showing the beauty of existence, and alongside them, indisputable facts based on science.
He should tell of the kind of wholesome and beautiful elements of our life; he should tell unsparingly of the evil and sorrow of the present, to move us with instances: he should tell of wise and good people in the past, to excite us by example; and of these he should tell soberly and truthfully, not glossing over faults, that we may neither grow discouraged with ourselves nor exacting with our neighbours.So the body of contemporary literature… touches in the minds of men the springs of thought and kindness, and supports them… on their way to what is true and right.
In his essay, Stevenson is aware that ‘facts’ can be viewed differently by different sides, and his antidote for that is simple. A writer must treat everything with sympathy, in its best light, without prejudice, and upon topics which one does not fully understand, remain silent. If a writer proposes to write about any form of controversy, they should wait until they have considered it under all conditions, allowing time to develop a proper opinion, so that they don’t give a misleading (biased) picture of the world.
In conclusion, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote about media bias in 1881, describing how two papers, covering the same issue, can write two completely different biased versions of an event. Newspapers may have lost some of their importance in the media landscape, but his words apply equally well to cable news networks and internet ‘news’ websites, and so does his solution to the problem…
Every article… is destined to pass through the minds of some portion of the public, and to color, however transiently, their thoughts. When any subject falls to be discussed, some scribbler on a paper has the invaluable opportunity of beginning its discussion in a dignified and human spirit; and if there were enough who did this in our public press, neither the public nor the Parliament would find it in their minds to drop to meaner thoughts.
It is up to all of us who call ourselves writers or journalists to raise our standards, and to strive to be honest and useful to humanity.
Sources:
Brenan, M. (2021, October 11). Americans’ Trust in Media Dips to second lowest on record. Gallup.com. Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://news.gallup.com/poll/355526/americans-trust-media-dips-second-lowest-record.aspx.
Stevenson, R., 1905. Essays in the art of writing.