Objective Analysis - "The Bias of Language, The Bias of Pictures"

In “The Bias of Language, The Bias of Pictures,” Neil Postman and Steve Powers explain how they feel language relates to both stationary pictures and moving pictures in today’s newscast. They explain how whether it is a stationary picture, such as in the newspaper or a photo on televised news, or a moving picture, such as in a news story on television, more or less words can be used to present the same information. As Postman and Powers explain, “the whole problem with news on television comes down to this; all the words uttered in an hour of news coverage could be printed on one page of a newspaper” (Postman & Powers, 2008, p. 485). The other problem seems to be that newscasts only present information that is favorable to the presentation of a moving picture. Small, uninteresting stories rarely are covered by today’s newscasts. This appears to be, according to Postman and Powers, the larger point of their essay.

Postman and Powers agree that in today’s newscast, many reporters and anchors have a difficult time trying to describe events without being judgmental or biased in any way. They explain how every reporter or anchor falls into one of three categories while presenting news stories, “descriptions, judgments, and inferences” (Postman & Powers, 2008, p. 483). Descriptions, they say, “involves no judgments and no inferences” (Postman & Powers, 2008, p. 483), simply descriptive facts. Judgments, are simply that, “a judgment that the speaker makes of the ‘event’ “ (Postman & Powers, 2008, p. 483). Lastly, there are inferences, which is “a statement about the unknown based on the known” (Postman & Powers, 2008, p. 483). As both writers’ indicate, the last two categories make it difficult for the public for believe quite everything that they hear, even though the news is supposed to be relatively honest and unbiased.

Both of these writers’, together, present an accurate portrayal of the news and media alike. Many forms of the media are biased, regardless what they claim, and most focus only on the negative or “interesting” stories. Anything that would not be considered “interesting” by the majority of viewers, is never seen on television, and may only have a small spot in the local newspaper.

Reference:  Postman, N., Powers, S. (2008). The Bias of Language, The Bias of Pictures. In Laura Gray-Rosendale (Ed.), Pop Perspectives (pp.  481-490). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies.