Overcoming Bias: A Journalist's Guide to Culture & Context

Journalists go out of their way to avoid purposeful bias in the news. But there is a more pervasive set of internal biases and flaws in thinking that can lead to unintentional inaccuracies and distortions in news coverage. This engaging book offers a fresh take on reporting without bias, targeting the way that we categorize people, filter information and default to rehearsed ways of thinking. Included throughout are stories and on-target advice from reporters and editors, providing real-world voices and experiences. This advice and guidance is coupled with practical exercises that give readers the chance to apply what they learn. Overcoming Bias will teach readers to edit their thinking for habitual errors, making them more perceptive journalists. It provides a career-long foundation for challenging bias. This is an ideal text for a course on multi-cultural reporting or journalism ethics; it may also be used as a supplement in any course on reporting and writing, as each chapter deals with potential biases that emerge at each stage of the story process, from story ideas to editing.