On evaluating and acknowledging our biases

There are few professions in which individuals are expected to be completely without bias. In most professions, our biases rarely interfere with the integrity of our work.

Yet, as a journalist, it’s a constant battle. Because we consume so much information on a daily basis, we probably have opinions on many more topics than the average person does. And since we’re natural communicators, we’re prone to spewing out our thoughts (on paper or otherwise) at any given time.

It’s something that is completely in conflict with the work we do, however.

Upon doing research on the very broad topic of rodents in Toronto earlier this week, I came across some information that wasn’t secret, but it hadn’t been published yet. Like a good little intern, I jumped on it, dug some more and made a real breaking news story out of it.

Rodent infestations continue to bedevil Chinatown and Kensington Market, with health authorities ordering five recent business closures in the span of a few blocks.

I was also lucky enough to have the chance to turn it into a larger, issue-based feature story the next day.

More than a third of the city’s 56 closures in the past year have taken place in this area, with most inspection records noting rodent or insect infestations, or both.

However, as I interviewed Toronto city councillor Adam Vaughan about the issue and some of the things he’s been doing to make those neighbourhoods, which are in his ward, he raised a very complicated, loaded issue: bias in the media.

Now, he never said, “You’re a racist.” It was never that direct. But as a member of the media breaking and covering a story, I was clearly among those who he thinks approach the issue with a “tinge of racism.”

This has the tinge of racism to it and it’s unacceptable.

At first, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Am I being racist for covering this story? I thought. At first I panicked a little because, you know, I’m white. I don’t know what it’s like to be not white. I’ve never lived in a foreign culture. I’ve never been a poor immigrant struggling to make it in a new country.

But then I looked at how I drew my conclusions about this story. To start, I used real data: the City of Toronto’s DineSafe website has inspection records for every restaurant in the city.

Based on my knowledge of city street names, I could already tell many of them were in the Chinatown/Kensington Market area and the rest were scattered throughout the city.

But I wanted to be sure, so I created a Google Map which showed the location of every food premises which had been closed in the past year. My assumption was correct and clearly illustrated on the map; there was a high concentration of closures within those side-by-side neighbourhoods.

I also spoke to leaders in both of the communities, giving them the opportunity to tell their side of the story:

Barbara Kwan, vice-chair of the Chinatown BIA, said business owners in the neighbourhood are doing everything they can to combat the problem.
…
Kensington Market Action Committee chairman Chris Devita agreed but said many local residents and business owners are not doing anything to eliminate pests.

The only thing I can’t account for is widespread systemic racism.

It’s entirely possible that the city’s public health inspectors target this area more than others and hold business owners there to a higher standard than others because of their race.

And it’s definitely true that many new immigrants, people of colour and non-English speakers face extremely challenging societal barriers for a number of reasons, only one of which is racism.

While I’m aware of those issues, they’re not something I could tackle in this article — and they’re issues that, perhaps, no journalist could hope to tackle in any news article.

The easiest question I can ask myself, as a journalist, is: Would I still cover this story if one third of the city’s closures had occurred in another neighbourhood, in hoity-toity Yorkville, or the artsy-fartsy Beaches, or Little Italy, or the Church-Wellesley Village, etc.?

The answer is yes, I would.

I would cover the story if it could be found in any of those neighbourhoods, or any other community, because not only is it my responsibility as a journalist, it’s also what I would expect as a consumer who frequents restaurants in this city and doesn’t check the DineSafe inspection history of each one before I go.

Could I have done more to acknowledge my biases in this case? How do you acknowledge your own biases in your work life?

Media consumption and criticism

Every media outlet has a bias. The business side of each outlet may try to convince people otherwise, but any journalist or media consumer with half a brain can figure it out.

Sometimes the bias is political. Sometimes it’s financial, racial or socio-economic. Other times it’s just a matter of a lack of resources and, most often, a lack of bodies to do the work. The industry is more strapped than ever before.

Journalists strive to be accurate, to include as many sides of the story as possible and to avoid bias toward one point of view or another.

But it happens every day and sometimes there is a major backlash from the public.

For example, there has been a bit of a backlash in the last day or so following coverage of the plane crash near Buffalo on Thursday night by one media outlet in particular, which has traditionally been known for its sensationalism.

Instead of simply regurgitating the few available details over and over again, the outlet took it a step or two further by providing some local context:

The Toronto-built Bombardier turboprop plane involved in Thursday night’s devastating crash in a Buffalo suburb is the same model used by Porter Airlines.

The media isn’t making this up. It’s true. In fact, the media is simply doing its job by reporting these facts, which people with connections to the aerospace or airline industries already knew. It was no secret.

Full disclosure: My boyfriend has worked for the past few years as an aircraft assembler at the Bombardier plant where the crashed Q400 was built. In fact, he probably worked on that very plane.

Aside from the fact that he’s pretty upset about the whole incident, we (and the thousands of other people with connections to Bombardier, Porter and the airplane industries in general) were already aware that Porter only flies Q400s.

But that doesn’t stop people from blaming media coverage for their problems instead of taking responsibility for their own media consumption.

Take the comments by Ryan L. over at blogTO, for example:

I now have 2 days to convince [his girlfriend] (who was already scared of flying prior) it is safe to travel on planes with otherwise impeccable safety records or we’ll be taking the greyhound and lose a full day out of our already brief trip.

…

Your constant lack of journalistic integrity has potentially ruined the vacation I’ve been saving up for and planning for 4 months.

I watched the CityNews coverage (as well as CBC) yesterday and, as a trained journalist, I think the story was reported with integrity.

Sure, it was reported in the sensational style typical of the outlet, but it was seemingly accurate and reported multiple sides of the same story, including the event itself, the story of the Canadian man who died in the crash, the story of the 9/11 widow who also died, and the local angle involving Porter and Bombardier.

What’s wrong with that?

Maybe I’m “one of them” now, but I can’t help but get my back up when relatively good examples of my profession are not only dragged through the mud, but also blamed for the ignorance and paranoia of the people who consume media.

I’m a true believer in looking critically at media, but I think people must also look at themselves and think critically about the way in which they consume media and how the media affects their day-to-day lives.

If media outlets censored themselves based on the possibility of making somebody somewhere afraid of something, nothing would ever be reported.

Governments and politicians would not be held accountable for their actions. Corporations which put public safety at risk would never be exposed. Corrupt individuals would never be identified and made an example of.

These terrifying things happen every day and are reported on every day, but without media exposure nothing is learned and nothing will change.

Before consumers turn on their television sets, open a newspaper or head to a news website, they must put their own fears, paranoia and biases in check.