1. Should factual writing contain bias?
Factual writing is an informative piece of writing which can have different
purposes, such as to instruct, to persuadeor to informothers; this can be
portrayed to the audience through a number of different ways such as:
Instruction Manuals, How To booklets, Factual Journalismand so on. I believe that
rather than generalizing every differentaspect of factual writing as bias
altogether, there are certain aspects of it which are; while the others are not. To
go in to moredepth of this, I think that in particular; types like factual journalism
are more likely to cause somekind of bias, weather this be caused by the writer
or by the different judgements passed on by readers.
In general, being bias means that the individual discussing a particular topic has a
one-sided opinion towards it that they may choose to sharewith others causing a
difference in opinion; because not everyonewill agree on others opinions or
views. Oneadvantage of bias for those who chose to present information in this
way is that they are able do someresearch beforehand and potentially discover
that there are other people, articles, websites, books and so on that may sharean
opinion or view which is very similar to the one that they are aboutto present.
One example of this is, say that an individual was to express a view/opinion on
politics, if they choseto be bias with right wing parties they could look at
newspapers such as The Telegraph or The Daily Mail, whereas if the individual
choseto be bias with left wing parties they could look towards newspapers such
as The Guardian or The Independent. The individual could use any of the relevant
sources to potentially find a supported opinion or view which could potentially tip
the scales and encouragemore people to listen to the individual, this is because if
an opinion is supported it is more likely to be 'trusted'weather it is true or false.
Below is an example of a right wing paper (The Telegraph), which features an
article related to Theresa May and an article which shows a formof bias for the
conservatives, thePrime Minister (Theresa May). The article features a
controversialsubjectand gives a one sided opinion for the EU and againstLabour
party leader – Jeremy Corbin.

2. Another advantage/positiveaspectto bias is that there are ways of being bias on
both halves. What I mean by this is that there are people who are able to analyze
the information on both sides of the spectrumand keep an open mind which
enables them to not be swayed moretowards either of the potential sides; this
also enables the individuals to be able to appreciate both sides. The individuals
that chose to view factual writing on a more of a balanced scale could find
supported opinions fromplaces like the BBC (in regards to politics) because they
are directly in the middle of left and right wing without presenting an opinion or
view on either of the parties; this is a good example of what it means to be bias
but in a wholedifferent light.
While there are quite a few advantages to bias within factual writing, there are
also quite a few disadvantages. Onedisadvantageto bias is that the writer or
individual which presents the information is able to 'Cherry Pick'it before it is
presented to others. This means that they havethe ability to do someresearch on
a topic, look in to statistics and other information relevant to the topic; then pick
a specific part of it and create a focus around it. For example; Coca-Cola has
expressed how well they are doing and how much progress is being made with
encouraging people to recycle and improving the recycling rate of their productin
particular within the United Kingdom. However, whatmakes this 'Cherry Picked'is
that the article claims that 100% of their products are going to become
recyclable... IN2030. I believe this is a way of misleading people without actually
misleading them, people are often given information which has been made to

3. appear better and seem better than whatit actually is; this is how I would sumup
the term cherry picked.
Another disadvantageof bias is that if a producer was to decide to cherry pick the
best parts of presented information, to the point the that consumer sees through
this, recognizes whatis going on and decides to disagree and withdraw fromwith
the presented information all together then this could become a problem. The
reason why this could become a problem is because it could causethe audience
to not want to consumethe product/servicebecausethey could potentially feel
as though they were provided information which is considered to be 'misleading'.
The last thing that a producer wants is for their consumers to not wantto
consume, this can lead to more broadened problems such as people passing on
negative 'word of mouth' about the product/servicein question and decided to
also not consumer it either. This basically creates a type of domino effect, what I
mean by this is that if one person was to decide that they no longer wish to
continue purchasing a productor service for reasons listed above(such as
misleading/cherry picked information) they havethe ability to pass their views
and opinions on to people close to them which could encouragethem to do the
same (stop purchasing/using a product/service). This can majorly affectthe sales
of a business and potentially jeopardies the reputation of success rateof the
business.
On the whole, I think that bias both a good and a bad thing. I definitely think that
bias has to be used within different situations and circumstances. Thereare
situations where bias is expected, for example: in newspapers which weare
awareare bias with politics (as explained at the top of this document). I definitely
think that using bias for positivity is fine because there isn't a bad intention
behind it. However, using bias for negativity is much harder for people to agree. I
think that it can causeall kind of controversy and issues which I don’tthink is
correct.