THE REAL BIAS: 3 Simple Clues To Help Spot Biases in Articles 

In times where we mostly rely on technology in our day-to-day activities, communication is one of the biggest things that have changed, it has become more convenient than ever. 

We’re freer than ever to express what our minds want to say.  We’ve all gained the freedom to freely express our ideas. We've especially gained much more freedom to access information as well. But as flexibility expands on ways to obtain information, the leeway and flexibility in publishing and sharing information have grown proportionately larger as well. A great example of this would be people with an agenda, whether positive or negative, using such flexibility to their advantage; spreading the word and promoting their propaganda to the target audience, even intentionally spreading false information to achieve their goal. However, these all may seem small at first, but could lead to a series of massive misunderstandings and a dreaded information disorder. 

Here are three quick tips on how to sniff out biases in information and determine whether a piece of article is biased or not. 

• When it uses opinionated phrases 

Usually, factual texts don’t include any adjectives or opinions. It only ever answers the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How questions. If it includes a form of judgment from the author, it usually indicates that it’s opinionated. This type of writing usually has a mixture of personalized preferences, thus affecting the readers’ own opinions. Adjectives are not inherently wrong, but they either intensify the affirmation or negation of one’s confirmation bias towards certain information. 

• When it uses facts that are heavily critical or biased on one party 

When one presents facts and claims, it doesn’t always mean that it’s not biased. Occasionally people use these facts to rebuke another person. For example, using previous failed projects to indirectly criticize someone, or only mentioning positive projects to paint a good picture on a person. This tip highlights that even facts are bent towards a certain agenda or interest, so readers must also be cautious about other elements of information, like its authors and their backgrounds, and the context in which the writing was done. Similar to the previous tip, statements that the author adds to the text that might inflict a positive or negative idea to the reader, aren’t exactly a sin to the integrity of the text, but on occasion, they use these facts as justifications to criticize or praise a party. 

• When it uses unsupported claims

One of the major things to look out for are unsupported claims, most especially fallacies. In desperate situations, people tend to use statements that either have no definite proof or are generally faulty, occasionally even baiting readers. These kinds of claims spark controversy, hence attracting readers to think about such outrageousness. Look out for fallacies as these are clear indications of a biased article. Another point to look out for is when a writer uses critics that have no relation to the topic, such as cursing or slurs.

Being mindful about the quality of information encountered, more specifically the intensities of biases in articles, can be difficult as people gain more experience in publishing and spreading works, but that doesn’t mean we can’t avoid it. In keeping up with the latest news from trusted sources, double-checking with other sources, and learning more ways to separate the facts from fakes will progressively become more and more simple.