The role of bias in news and commentary

This is the first in a series of posts relating to a commentary thread over at Terrorism News.

H wrote: "All websites are biased. The truth is the collection of all facts from every perspective. Hence such a thing is impossible to define."

Then, as now, I agree that all websites are biased. The point of view contains bias, the choice of content contains bias, and the original writing contains bias. Yet even "H" would agree that some sites exhibit more bias than others. More on that later.

The truth is the collection of all facts from every perspective? Sorry, but perspective does not change facts, merely the manner in which a fact is perceived.
If I throw a red ball to H, then the ball is moving away from me and toward H from my perspective. From H's perspective the ball is moving toward H and away from me. The only fact that changes is the perspective itself. The facts stay the same (except for a relativist, but I don't think that H wrote to attach his wagon to relativism).

"Such a thing is impossible to define."
H may have lost me on that one. Truth is impossible to define? If that were the case, then he shouldn't be able to tell me that truth is "the collection of facts from every perspective." That would merely be his perspective on truth, thus leaving his statement short of being the truth--if we were to take his statement seriously, anyway.
Then again, maybe that's not what he meant at all.

What is the role of bias in news and commentary?
Bias in the choice of story is inevitable, but may be of negligible importance. For example, if I dedicated myself to providing access to every writing containing the term "terrorism" and I fulfill that goal, then the only bias is in the criterion of choice. There is no bias beyond that, since I am not excluding stories according to other criteria.
In the United States, the bias is primarily market-driven. The choice of story has much to do with what the reader wants to see (crime, conflict, animals, and children; not necessarily in combination). News content has also been filtered to avoid offending advertisers (publications that do not take advertising, such as Ms. magazine, would naturally be excepted).
A distinction is drawn in the United States between news and commentary, however. A news story is typically expected to be told as straight as possible, though admittedly there is no way to totally exclude bias. Crime stories that routinely identify race where one particular racial type is involved while omitting the mention of race where other racial types were involved reveal a bias, and conscientious newspeople try to avoid that type of thing. A publication that demonstrated such a pattern would be rightly criticized by blacks as reinforcing negative stereotypes; the excuse that bias is inevitable would ring hollow.
Restricting the story to one point of view would also increase bias, and the charitable reading of H's comment appears to agree. A newspaper, of course, cannot provide unlimited accounts of the various points-of-view for a story. The space is restricted, and reporters are restricted in their ability to collect information. Some people don't talk to reporters. Their points of view will not be represented as a result.
Editorials and columns, at least in the US, provide more latitude for the writer's bias. News stories are typically presented separately from commentary. If a newspaper indiscriminately mixed news stories with commentary, then legitimate complaints of bias would tend to proliferate.

The European model for news tends to be somewhat different from the US model, however. European news tends to feel less need for a separation between news and editorial content (more along these lines from Businessweek).

What's my point with all of this?
Where one wishes to communicate effectively to/with those who hold an opposing view, it is important to set aside bias to the point that the news presentation (or argument) holds some appeal for the reader. That is not to set aside one's point-of-view, but merely to take the other person's point-of-view into account in order to construct an argument that appeals to the opposition.
Otherwise, we preach to the converted while implicitly asking the opposition to leave the room while we say our piece.

I'm delighted if anybody reads something that I have written, even if they agreed with me before having read my work, but my goal is to make an argument that is persuasive to the opposition every time--without having to massage the truth.
The most effective argument, in my view, understands the best arguments in opposition and accounts for them.

Thanks again to H over at Terrorism News for permission to quote liberally (no pun intended) from the commentary at TN.