> The feeling that the news is biased undermines trust in traditional media in Flanders. That is the conclusion of a new study by the University of Antwerp. 75 percent of politicians and 67 percent of citizens rate news media as biased. However, there is little evidence of this. “But perception is more important than reality. When people see the news as biased, it affects their actions,” warns researcher Kathleen Beckers.
> The researchers at the University of Antwerp asked Flemish citizens, politicians and journalists about the bias of Flemish news media. They tested that against the actual bias of traditional newspaper and television news in Flanders. The results are clear: 75 percent of politicians and 67 percent of citizens feel that the traditional news media are biased, although there is little evidence of this.
——
> **Method**
> Using questionnaires, the researchers examined how Flemish citizens, politicians and journalists view the partisanship of the news. They compared these perceptions with a large-scale content analysis of newspapers, television news and messages on Twitter to examine how much attention different parties actually receive.
> “We asked politicians to what extent they felt that different news media disadvantaged or favored them,” researcher Kathleen Beckers told “De ochtend” on Radio 1. “When we asked them exactly what that bias meant, they mainly said that they were not covered enough in the news and that when they were covered, they were treated more critically or more negatively.”
> Right-wing parties such as N-VA and Vlaams Belang in particular feel this way, but left-wingers also indicate it. “And remarkably: they use the same argument. On the right, they say, ‘journalists are too left-wing and that’s why we come across more negatively.’ In turn, leftists argue that “journalists are accused of being leftists and therefore they are going to overcompensate by portraying us more negatively.”
I don’t have the feeling that the news is biased, but that a lot of journalists are incompetent or not smart enough.
> Opmerkelijk: ook journalisten zelf hebben het gevoel niet altijd even onpartijdig te zijn in hun berichtgeving. Ze geven aan dat ze centrumrechtse partijen voortrekken. “Misschien omdat N-VA veel bestuursfuncties heeft”, meent onderzoeker Karin Soontjens. “Maar die verklaring volstaat eigenlijk niet. N-VA is mogelijk vocaler in mediakritiek en dat gaan journalisten overcompenseren in vergelijking met Open VLD en CD&V.”
That confirms my feeling in this regard. Claims from nva politicians all to easily get turned into a headline and reported on without question. while statements from others get framed and critiqued more easily. Pretty cynical that right-wingers are meanwhile the most likely to complain about bias.
Nevertheless great to see it isn’t as bad as it gets made out to be.
It’s not an opinion if it’s true
Wij van VRT-eend vinden dat VRT-eend niet bevooroordeeld is.
Ik denk dat we wereldwijd op dit vlak zeker bij de beteren van de klas zijn. In belangrijke democratische landen als de VS, VK, Italië, Oost-Europa is het véél erger tot rampzalig.
Maar helemààl ongerechtvaardigd is dat gevoel toch ook niet. Er zijn 2 maar grote mediagroepen in Vlaanderen en de Vlaamse regering doet verwoede pogingen om van de publieke omroep een spreekbuis te maken van haar politiek.
De privé media bedrijven krijgen bvb als presentje zaken als gesubsidieerde distributie of gratis content voor hun streaming service. Dan stel ik me vragen wat die privé bedrijven daarvoor in de plaats geven of hoe ze hun nieuws kiezen. Denk dat bvb aan de immo schandalen rond Bart De Wever die maar beperkte aandacht kregen van heel wat kranten, of hoe sommige nieuwsmedia zich wel erg focussen op thema’s waar bepaalde partijen zich op focussen (immigratie, misdaad).
Los daarvan is het niet abnormaal dat de redactie van een nieuws medium een zekere mening heeft, die je ziet terugkomen in de berichtgeving en duiding. Het is nu eenmaal de taak van een nieuwsredactie om het nieuws te duiden, en de context goed aan te geven, ook aan een publiek dat niet altijd 100% mee is.
Neem bvb een artikel over een NVA minister die foute bedragen gebruikt in een antwoord. De ene krant zal dan schrijven “het is onduidelijk waar deze getallen op gebaseerd zijn” of “de minister maakte een vergissing”, een andere zal zeggen “deze minister gaf opnieuw foute cijfers aan het parlement”. Ze geven allemaal hetzelfde, objectieve feit weer, maar toch lees je ze helemaal anders. De NVA zal dan vinden dat die laatste redactie anti-NVA is, maar linkse politici zullen bij die eerste manier zeggen dat er véél te licht gegaan wordt over “liegen in het parlement”.
The news claims that they are impartial . Sounds a bit like “wij van WC-eend raden WC-eend aan!” 🙃
You have to be a complete moron to believe that the media/journalists are unbiased. And I don’t even necessarily mean this as a right/left wing thing. Just in general. Media is made up by people and people have an opinion and people have their agendas. And if they don’t critique certain statements, you will still notice their opinion in another way.
Example: Sanda Dia. Let’s compare this to another story: schild en vrienden. For one, a literal murder happened and for the other memes got shared. But no matter how you look at it or what you think is worse, for one, they said it was unnecessary to reveal names and/or faces, while for the other, they gladly started the witchhunt themselves. It doesn’t matter who you agree with, it doesn’t matter which is worse. What matters, is that this is biased. Maybe it is because schild en vrienden is extreme right and maybe the media hates extreme right. Maybe the media got paid by the rich reuzegommer parents. I don’t know and I don’t care. The media is biased, period.
But going back to the political side of things while staying on topic of schild en vrienden, there is also clear bias. The media literally had an agreement to not give Dries Van Langenhove a platform to do debats and whatnot for Vlaams Belang. Are they right to do so? Maybe. Is it biased? Definitely yes. No matter how good your reasons are, if you purposely block a politician from debating, that is bias.
Perhaps there are also similar things happening on the left side, I’m not as aware of those. I’m also not saying the media strictly reports the right less or in a more negative way. But they definitely do pick and choose whatever seems to fit for themselves, whether that be left, right or center. Could be one side, could be a little of every side, there is bias in any case.
8 comments
Translation:
> The feeling that the news is biased undermines trust in traditional media in Flanders. That is the conclusion of a new study by the University of Antwerp. 75 percent of politicians and 67 percent of citizens rate news media as biased. However, there is little evidence of this. “But perception is more important than reality. When people see the news as biased, it affects their actions,” warns researcher Kathleen Beckers.
> The researchers at the University of Antwerp asked Flemish citizens, politicians and journalists about the bias of Flemish news media. They tested that against the actual bias of traditional newspaper and television news in Flanders. The results are clear: 75 percent of politicians and 67 percent of citizens feel that the traditional news media are biased, although there is little evidence of this.
——
> **Method**
> Using questionnaires, the researchers examined how Flemish citizens, politicians and journalists view the partisanship of the news. They compared these perceptions with a large-scale content analysis of newspapers, television news and messages on Twitter to examine how much attention different parties actually receive.
> You can access the full study [here](https://www.aspeditions.be/en/book/journalistiek-uit-balans/19400).
—–
> “We asked politicians to what extent they felt that different news media disadvantaged or favored them,” researcher Kathleen Beckers told “De ochtend” on Radio 1. “When we asked them exactly what that bias meant, they mainly said that they were not covered enough in the news and that when they were covered, they were treated more critically or more negatively.”
> Right-wing parties such as N-VA and Vlaams Belang in particular feel this way, but left-wingers also indicate it. “And remarkably: they use the same argument. On the right, they say, ‘journalists are too left-wing and that’s why we come across more negatively.’ In turn, leftists argue that “journalists are accused of being leftists and therefore they are going to overcompensate by portraying us more negatively.”
_________
Other articles:
[De Standaard](https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20230604_97267862)
I don’t have the feeling that the news is biased, but that a lot of journalists are incompetent or not smart enough.
> Opmerkelijk: ook journalisten zelf hebben het gevoel niet altijd even onpartijdig te zijn in hun berichtgeving. Ze geven aan dat ze centrumrechtse partijen voortrekken. “Misschien omdat N-VA veel bestuursfuncties heeft”, meent onderzoeker Karin Soontjens. “Maar die verklaring volstaat eigenlijk niet. N-VA is mogelijk vocaler in mediakritiek en dat gaan journalisten overcompenseren in vergelijking met Open VLD en CD&V.”
That confirms my feeling in this regard. Claims from nva politicians all to easily get turned into a headline and reported on without question. while statements from others get framed and critiqued more easily. Pretty cynical that right-wingers are meanwhile the most likely to complain about bias.
Nevertheless great to see it isn’t as bad as it gets made out to be.
It’s not an opinion if it’s true
Wij van VRT-eend vinden dat VRT-eend niet bevooroordeeld is.
Ik denk dat we wereldwijd op dit vlak zeker bij de beteren van de klas zijn. In belangrijke democratische landen als de VS, VK, Italië, Oost-Europa is het véél erger tot rampzalig.
Maar helemààl ongerechtvaardigd is dat gevoel toch ook niet. Er zijn 2 maar grote mediagroepen in Vlaanderen en de Vlaamse regering doet verwoede pogingen om van de publieke omroep een spreekbuis te maken van haar politiek.
De privé media bedrijven krijgen bvb als presentje zaken als gesubsidieerde distributie of gratis content voor hun streaming service. Dan stel ik me vragen wat die privé bedrijven daarvoor in de plaats geven of hoe ze hun nieuws kiezen. Denk dat bvb aan de immo schandalen rond Bart De Wever die maar beperkte aandacht kregen van heel wat kranten, of hoe sommige nieuwsmedia zich wel erg focussen op thema’s waar bepaalde partijen zich op focussen (immigratie, misdaad).
Los daarvan is het niet abnormaal dat de redactie van een nieuws medium een zekere mening heeft, die je ziet terugkomen in de berichtgeving en duiding. Het is nu eenmaal de taak van een nieuwsredactie om het nieuws te duiden, en de context goed aan te geven, ook aan een publiek dat niet altijd 100% mee is.
Neem bvb een artikel over een NVA minister die foute bedragen gebruikt in een antwoord. De ene krant zal dan schrijven “het is onduidelijk waar deze getallen op gebaseerd zijn” of “de minister maakte een vergissing”, een andere zal zeggen “deze minister gaf opnieuw foute cijfers aan het parlement”. Ze geven allemaal hetzelfde, objectieve feit weer, maar toch lees je ze helemaal anders. De NVA zal dan vinden dat die laatste redactie anti-NVA is, maar linkse politici zullen bij die eerste manier zeggen dat er véél te licht gegaan wordt over “liegen in het parlement”.
The news claims that they are impartial . Sounds a bit like “wij van WC-eend raden WC-eend aan!” 🙃
You have to be a complete moron to believe that the media/journalists are unbiased. And I don’t even necessarily mean this as a right/left wing thing. Just in general. Media is made up by people and people have an opinion and people have their agendas. And if they don’t critique certain statements, you will still notice their opinion in another way.
Example: Sanda Dia. Let’s compare this to another story: schild en vrienden. For one, a literal murder happened and for the other memes got shared. But no matter how you look at it or what you think is worse, for one, they said it was unnecessary to reveal names and/or faces, while for the other, they gladly started the witchhunt themselves. It doesn’t matter who you agree with, it doesn’t matter which is worse. What matters, is that this is biased. Maybe it is because schild en vrienden is extreme right and maybe the media hates extreme right. Maybe the media got paid by the rich reuzegommer parents. I don’t know and I don’t care. The media is biased, period.
But going back to the political side of things while staying on topic of schild en vrienden, there is also clear bias. The media literally had an agreement to not give Dries Van Langenhove a platform to do debats and whatnot for Vlaams Belang. Are they right to do so? Maybe. Is it biased? Definitely yes. No matter how good your reasons are, if you purposely block a politician from debating, that is bias.
Perhaps there are also similar things happening on the left side, I’m not as aware of those. I’m also not saying the media strictly reports the right less or in a more negative way. But they definitely do pick and choose whatever seems to fit for themselves, whether that be left, right or center. Could be one side, could be a little of every side, there is bias in any case.