In recent years, the term “bias” has been toxified to delegitimize journalism across the political spectrum.
The phrase “fake news” is being thrown around casually with no regard to the damage it does to trust in journalism. The media is the only connection between the public, professional news reporting and the politics of the world. Regardless of political affiliation, you should care about a stable connection between the three.
Even worse than discrediting entire news organizations, the term “bias” is also used on campuses as a victimization tool to silence those who hold “the wrong views.”
While both liberal and conservative speakers have seen protests at their events, there has been a notable level of success by leftist groups in shutting down right-wing speakers — this being distinct from disruptive protests.
From writers such as Milo Yiannopoulos and Ben Shapiro to former director of the C.I.A. John Brennan, there has been a clear initiative by left-wing student activism to censor speech they disagree with, from the self-proclaimed position of a moral high ground. You cannot preach tolerance while simultaneously practicing its antithesis.
Both the discrediting of the media and university speech censorship come from a misguided label-happy appetite to be uncompromisingly right by arguing that those who disagree are either wrong by political association, or biased. This is an unsustainable habit for productive discourse.
Part of having empathy is understanding, and part of understanding comes from the intersection of different ideas. Let us read news with different perspectives, host more ideologically diverse panels and speakers, facilitate more debates between political club groups and, for the love of all that is good in this world, be more openly biased.
