Chapter 4 treats the subject of “credibility.” Of critical importance in evaluating the source of a claim is whether the source is an “interested party.” An interested party is a person or entity who stands to gain from our belief in a claim. News organizations sometimes have vested interests in covering stories the way that they do.

In Frames #14 and #15 of the Lectures on Chapter 4 are two cases that seem to show bias in the News. One is the Texas energy catastrophe of 2021 and the other is the Nicolas Sandman slander case. The Sandman case has a link in Frame #15 to a story about the news coverage of the event (here it is again: https://reason.com/2020/01/21/covington-catholic-media-nick-sandmann-lincoln-memorial/ Links to an external site. ). The Texas energy crisis news coverage issue might require a bit more research under Tucker Carlson and CNN.

Your assignment in this week’s Discussion is to pick one of these two news coverage stories, then explain and evaluate the news bias. If you do not think that there is any bias, explain why.