Why Conservatives Hate Liberals and Liberals Hate Conservatives Part 4: Why it's Getting Worse, Facts as Bias

Facts as Bias:

Facts are weird little things. While they infer the idea of truth and are in fact true, they can be used to present information in a bias way. In fact the media on both sides has gotten really good at doing this. Every day I stumble across facts that are used to disguise bias and just like everyone else I fall for them. This does not mean that facts are not useful, they are. What it does mean is that you have to be careful of how facts are being used. Below I will give an example of how this is done.

The above picture shows information on how gerrymandering works.  However, while it shows how gerrymandering works it doesn't tell the entire story of gerrymandering in our country. In fact it has a pretty strong bias against conservatives and supports a strong left bias. It does this subtly but the fact is it does and I am going to explain how.

1: Notice the colors?

The people who drew this nifty little chart could have picked any color they wanted. However instead of picking black and white, purple and yellow, or any other combination they choose red and blue. The reason for this is because red and blue are the colors of the Republican and Democrat parties respectively. This turns the article into more than a discussion of how gerrymandering works into a political argument about how red (Republicans) is worse than blue (Democrats) when it comes to gerrymandering.

2: Notice the Title?

The title is "This is the best explanation of gerrymandering you will ever see". What's that tell me as a reader? Why it tells me that the information here will inform me of how gerrymandering works better than any other article so of course I am going to read it. Now, combine that with the subtle bias of the colors used and you can see how again your bias to view Republicans as worse than Democrats is being built.

3: Notice the sub title?

The part below the title says "By simplifying gerrymandering we can see how problematic it really is". Not only have we now inferred that Republicans are worse than Democrats, but we have also said that this article is the best explanation on gerrymandering, and now we are saying that Republicans are the problem! You kind of have to admire just how slick this all works out and I haven't even read the article yet.

Keep in mind that this article does use facts on how gerrymandering works. In fact it is actually a good explanation of how it works and why it is a problem. Yet, while it does succeed there, it also influences a bias quite a bit. If this article had used any other color combination it could have avoided this, but that wouldn't have gotten outraged liberals to look at it now would it?

I know that it can be difficult to see this kind of thing and when we do excuse it as being okay. However the fact is that if we allow our bias to be influenced by media, we can be led astray very easily. I hope you all give this some thought...