00:00We've shown you countless examples of how news outlets can show bias in their words, in their sources, even in their headlines.
00:09Well, today we're going to walk you through the editorial decisions behind what millions of Americans see and don't see when they tune into their nightly newscast.
00:19For this episode, we're pulling you out of your media bubble because everyone's got one.
00:24And we're going to be showing you how the news is delivered very differently across the media spectrum.
00:30What stories get prioritized? What details get covered?
00:34And how an outlet's political lean is quietly steering the coverage you see and how you see exactly what they want you to.
00:42Welcome back to Bias Breakdown.
00:46I'll set the scene. It's a quiet Tuesday evening.
00:49You're at home after a day at work or running errands.
00:52You turn on the news and what do you see?
00:55We begin tonight here with the breaking news. Congress passing a bill demanding the release of all of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
01:01As we come on the air tonight, the Epstein files are on the verge of release after a dramatic day on Capitol Hill.
01:07We are closer to seeing what's in the Justice Department's files on Jeffrey Epstein.
01:11In ABC, CBS, and NBC's primetime coverage, the Senate and House vote to force the DOJ to release the Epstein files was the lead story.
01:22But in Fox News' top primetime newscast, a video from Democrats telling military members not to obey illegal orders was the story they let off their show with.
01:33What we begin with is a shocking, an abuse of power. Top Democratic lawmakers on tape calling for an insurrection against our commander-in-chief.
01:43Democrats keep losing to Trump on the issue, so they fight dirty. Leaks, hoaxes, lawfare. Now they're telling the troops to commit treason.
01:51Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders.
01:55In these instances, ABC, CBS, and NBC didn't cover the Democrat social media video that was taking up a lot of oxygen on right-leaning news programs.
02:07And while Hannity and Waters did make mention of the Epstein files vote, it was in their B blocks after the first commercial break with lower relevance.
02:17News producers are typically the ones inside of newsrooms stacking a show, meaning choosing story selection and prioritizing the stories, the first story being the most important one.
02:30But what is the most important news story of a day? That is an editorial decision and opinion that news outlets have to make.
02:39While sometimes it reveals patterns of media bias in what stories they select and where they place them, other times it's just a difference in what they feel is order of priority.
02:50Let's look at the next day on Wednesday. For Fox News, the same story consumed their news cycle once again.
02:57We begin tonight with what some are calling an attempted coup led by six Democratic lawmakers.
03:04Now, we first showed you the tape last night.
03:07You're talking to young members of the American military, and you're not telling them specifically what it is they should see as illegal.
03:16So you're putting ideas into their head that maybe they're being asked to do something illegal.
03:21It is insurrection, plainly, directly, without question.
03:25Democrats see something as being icky. So they're trying to trigger a military coup, which would throw us into a constitutional crisis.
03:34That's tantamount to encouraging an insurrection.
03:36They're either too stupid to know they're encouraging rebellion, or they're actively trying to encourage rebellion.
03:44There were a lot of other clips, too.
03:46This story overwhelmed the airwaves on many of Fox News' shows on this day.
03:52Now, it's important to remind you that many of Fox News' primetime programs and others are technically opinion shows.
03:59It gives the host leeway to tell the news with some commentary flair.
04:04It's the same thing with, like, The View or many of MS Now's programs, which is MSNBC's new brand.
04:12Now, even so, these shows are how millions of people still get their news.
04:16So for the sake of this story, if you are consuming news from Fox, you were told a lot about this video made by Democrats before much of the media was talking about it.
04:28Because for much of the media that Wednesday, focus was on other news stories, whether it be back on Epstein.
04:35The bill demanding the release of the full Jeffrey Epstein files has now been sent to the White House and the president has now signed it.
04:43Or Trump's speech at an investment forum.
04:46This was a very lengthy address to a crowd that ultimately gave President Trump a standing ovation because, of course, he reiterated the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi as it relates to that $1 trillion investment.
05:01Or a former Olympian landing on the FBI's top 10 most wanted list.
05:06Olympic athletes represent their country on the world's biggest stage.
05:10But tonight, a former Olympian is getting global recognition for another reason, his spot on the FBI's most wanted list.
05:18The Democrats' video remained off of left-leaning media's radar until Thursday.
05:24And then the story was on every channel because President Trump made it newsworthy for everyone when he responded to the Democrats' video.
05:32Tonight, President Trump criticized by members of both parties after calling six Democratic members of Congress, quote, traitors and accusing them of seditious behavior punishable by death.
05:43Outrage from Democrats after President Trump lashed out, saying some of them should be arrested and even put to death.
05:50President Trump, in an extraordinary post, accused a group of Democratic lawmakers of committing a crime, he said, is punishable by death.
05:58Look at this. Trump said on Truth Social this morning, this is really bad and dangerous to our country.
06:04Their words cannot be allowed to stand. Seditious behavior from traitors. Lock them up.
06:09They take an oath to support and defend the Constitution.
06:13And disobeying illegal orders is not sedition or treason. It's a duty.
06:17It's obvious to everyone, but we have a commander-in-chief who is actually likely to give that illegal order and perhaps has already done so.
06:23The president is suggesting that members of Congress should be hung.
06:29In a radio interview this morning, President Trump said he was not threatening death to the Democratic lawmakers, but suggested that the Pentagon may be looking into the lawmakers' video.
06:39I think what this president doesn't seem to realize is that military members take an oath to the Constitution, not to the president of the United States.
06:47The president likened it to treason. The president actually said it could be seditious behavior, punishable by death.
06:55As a result, we have reached out, you know, this is now the part of the scandal with these Democrats.
06:59They pretend to be the victims in all this.
07:01He followed up, seditious behavior, punishable by death.
07:05Democrats just told the military to disobey the president, and now they're mad when he says don't commit treason.
07:11The media is picking a side. Take a guess.
07:13Just to be clear, does the president want to execute members of Congress?
07:19No.
07:19Now this here is more about revealing the media's dynamics.
07:23A social media video put out by Democrats was of high relevance to conservatives because it was being scrutinized by the right.
07:32And conservative media met their audience where their priorities lie.
07:37Before Trump's comments boosted the relevance of the story for everyone, that story was primarily seen on right-leaning news programs.
07:46It was newsworthy more so for the right than the left.
07:49But after the president's comments were made, then a wave of interest from the left joined the existing interest on the right.
07:57But the two political sides had their own interests as to why it was relevant for them.
08:03Ryan, let's also talk about the politics here, right?
08:05It is D.C. Both sides really trying to keep the focus on this video.
08:10Yeah, Tom, for Republicans, it's an opportunity to call out Democrats and remind them that President Trump is still the commander-in-chief.
08:17And they're saying that he's issued no illegal orders.
08:20For Democrats, though, it's their opportunity to show their voters that they're willing to stand up to President Trump.
08:25Some left-leaning outlets even called out their own side, arguing that other media didn't give the story enough coverage.
08:33They criticized other news outlets' news judgment and story selection process, suggesting they downplayed the story and failed to give it the weight it deserved to round out last week's news cycle.
08:47Had any other president of the United States ever said anything like it, the New York Times would have a six-inch headline about it and a front page devoted entirely to that madness and the reaction to that madness.
09:01And tonight, it's not even close to the lead story in the New York Times.
09:06It is impossible to make too much of this story.
09:11And the only way to try to reduce the historic and moral and legal importance of what Donald Trump said is to internalize the notion that Donald Trump's words do not matter.
09:22And the American news media has done that.
09:25It's the similar dynamic I've showed you before where right-leaning media criticized other right-leaning media and their lack of Epstein coverage.
09:34Again, critical of the others' editorial process, suggesting they were weighing political repercussions if they broke ranks with the White House after the president dismissed the Epstein file's importance in July.
09:48You may have noticed the Epstein story was almost nowhere to be found, though, on Fox News.
09:54And a lot of TV hosts are terrified of what to say and how to say it because they don't want to lose their audience and they don't want to piss off the White House at the same time.
10:02So it becomes a bit of a catch-22.
10:04Newsrooms answer a series of questions every single day.
10:08What is newsworthy?
10:09Does this story have high public interest?
10:13What verified facts are available?
10:14And are there enough elements to even tell the story responsibly?
10:18And while we often identify bias by omission on this podcast, it's important to remember a story being absent from one side of the media spectrum doesn't automatically mean there was political motive behind that decision.
10:32Sometimes the reason is far more logistical than ideological.
10:36Newsrooms have a limited amount of real estate.
10:38There are only so many minutes in a news program and only so many slots in a rundown.
10:44When I used to stack local news shows, I might have room for three to five stories in the A block.
10:51That's the most important stories of the day.
10:53Then maybe a health or consumer story in the B block, sports in the C block, and a light kicker at the end.
10:59And that's it.
11:00There was not a lot of wiggle room.
11:02Now, a lot of stories that I personally felt were relevant never made it on air.
11:06Or we'd push them to the digital team for just a web article for that day.
11:11News is vast.
11:13There's a lot out there to cover.
11:15There are far more stories than there are minutes to cover them in traditional broadcast.
11:20Yes, sometimes there are clear partisan patterns in coverage.
11:24But even then, you have to ask, was the omission intentional?
11:29Did an outlet deliberately leave the story out to shape a narrative?
11:34Or was it simply a case of coverage priorities?
11:37That part can be debated.
11:40But one thing is certain.
11:42News outlets cater to their audiences.
11:45They know their viewers.
11:46They know you.
11:48They know what you're likely to click on, watch, or have a big reaction to.
11:52And they know how to get that emotional response out of you.
11:56Different audiences get different news cycle priorities.
12:01And that was evident here.
12:03Different news bubbles produce different realities.
12:06What you know about the world and the stories you think are important to the current news cycle,
12:12it could be completely different from what your neighbor down the street thinks
12:15just based on the news you're consuming.
12:18There are stories you will be told that they won't.
12:22And stories you will miss that they will see.
12:26Because that's the current landscape of our media.
12:30And that's your bias breakdown.
12:33Thank you so much for watching this week's episode all the way to the end here.
12:36A little bit different than our other episodes, I know.
12:39It was a lot of sifting through a lot of news broadcasts
12:43to make sure I could get a good grasp on the different partisan media landscapes
12:46and to make sure I wasn't missing coverage from an outlet on one side.
12:51Now, if you're new here and just now discovering us,
12:53I highly recommend you check out more of our latest episodes.
12:57We try to stay on top of some of the most talked about stories
13:00and we identify different sorts of specific biases in coverage.
13:03Last week, we talked about how the media cherry-picked different details
13:07and released Jeffrey Epstein emails.
13:10And we also covered the media divide
13:12and how different outlets displayed data on Christian deaths in Nigeria.
13:17Please go check us out.
13:18We're easy to find.
13:19Just search for Bias Breakdown on Spotify
13:21or wherever you listen to your podcast.
13:24This was a heavy editing lift for Ian Kennedy this week.
13:27So seriously, thank you so much to Ian
13:29for helping us out with putting this video together.
13:32I hope you and your loved ones get to spend a lot of good time together
13:36for this Thanksgiving.
13:37It's my favorite holiday.
13:39I love any excuse to eat a bunch of food
13:41and then go play some yard games with family
13:44and then eat a bunch of food again.
13:46So happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
13:50I'm very grateful for this platform
13:52and the opportunity to tell the news a little bit differently here.
13:57Thank you for watching and I will see you next time.
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