1. Should factual writing contain bias?
Bias is a one-sided judgment that you agree with that is based on your past
experiences and ideas. Being bias means you only have one view point on
something and not having an open mind to other ideas. You can be
bias to a person, sexuality, religion, social class, political party etc.
Lots of newspaper contain bias, for example the daily mail are bias
as they aremore right wing as they agree with the ideas that the
conservatives createtherefore postarticle that promotethem rather
than labour. Such as the guardian are moreleft wing supporting the
Labour party in their articles.
There are reasons why bias should be included in factual writing for example
there are good thing about having a bias opinion in an article. By having a one-
sided judgment, it means it is going to supportsomepeople’s opinions
therefore they are going to enjoy this article much more and they are then
more inclined to purchasethe newspaper, outlet again. Also, there is a positive
effect for people who don’t agree with the opinion as this will help them be
more open minded other people’s opinions and create view points for people.
This gives people moreinformation to gain a further understanding on the
subjectand therefore could help them change their mind and have a different
view on the situation that they thoughtthey were against. An example of a
positive effect bias has is the way people act. For example, if you were going to
a party and your boss was wearing a fancy suit and dress very smartly because
you are their employee you are likely to wear similar clothes to try impress him
therefore being bias over the type of clothes you wear to fit in, this is positive
type of bias that mostpeople have. Another example of why bias can be good
in factual writing as it challenges people opinions more. If we had a newspaper
that never gave their opinions people would justbelieve their opinions is the
correctone and never argue againstit, having newspaper and magazine spread
their opinions teaches people about the different sideof the problem
encouraging them to read both sides instead of justtheirs. This will help
people become more educated in the story and make them think abouttheir
judgement more. Bias is a good thing as it allows people to have their say in
how they feel. Not having bias in your writing is limiting the way a person can
think. There is not a right way to think and by not allowing people to have
these judgments restricts their views. An example of how being bias is a good
thing is the guardian publishing a story on Jeremy Corbyn Labour leader and
his responseto spy story. In this article, they talk about how the rumour got

2. out and how he dealed with it. They did not
agree with the statement and say he is a spy
because the guardian is a left-wing
newspaper as the mainly supportLabour in
the articles. By this they made surethey got
all the facts across to show he is not instead
of trying to paint him as one thereforewhen
people who agreed with this statement read
the article will learn the facts and stories
about how he is not one and will make them
see the story in a different hopefully
changing their opinion. Being bias can help
get the truth out to those who thought wrong.
Here they have spoken abouthow the allegations have been rejected to show
people that he is not a spy showing thatthey are on his side instead of trying
to make it out like he is.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/20/jeremy-corbyn-calls-
czech-spy-allegations-nonsense
However, being bias in writing can be a bad thing. For example, becausethe
article is one sided they are going to promote the story, causeor person they
agree with. By doing this they can cherry pick certain facts and phrases to
supporttheir argument. The definition of Cherry picking is to pick only the best
people or things froma group, so that only people or things that are less good
remain:
An example of cherry picking is the daily mail new stories was based on a
scientific paper by Sigman and biologist. The paper misrepresented the stories
and usecherry picking to select the study’s thatonly supported Sigman’s view.
The problem with this is as its only presenting half the evidence
letting people thinking that’s the only evidence provided. They did
because they got somestick from Aric Sigman therefore made him
look bad by cherry picking certain parts of the information
therefore making people believe bad things or making them focus
on the bad parts. This article is from the guardian and they are
supporting the science paper and not the daily mail. This is shown
as they talk about the bad ting the daily mail did when talking
about this paper, the guardian did this to show their audience that
the daily mail isn’t trustworthy and bias but being doing this cause
them to be bias as they are rival paper and therefore they are talking bad

3. about the other one to try make people think bad of them.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/sep/23/bad-science-ben-
goldacre
Therefore, cherry picking can make stories seem different then they are and
make the audience believe in something that exaggerated to make them agree
with their opinion.
Another reason why being bias in your writing is a bad thing is becauseif the
person who is reading the piece of writing or article disagrees with the author
opinion they are going no enjoy the article and thereforenot read it and
because of this they are more likely to not buy that newspaper or magazine
anymoreas they know they have different opinions to them and will go look
for other newspaper that agree with their opinion. The hypodermic needle
theory is an example of why bias is a bad thing. People in the media especially
young people areinfluenced from whatthey see. The theory talks about how
people see things in the media such as stories and news and believe it straight
away without having a say or their own opinion. This is dangerous as if an
article talks about their opinion the people are young aregoing to believe this
opinion without looking at other or their own. The PayneFund Studies, which
were conducted between 1929-1932and looked at the effect movies haveon
children, also contributed to this idea that the mass media has a powerfuland
direct influence on audiences. http://lessonbucket.com/media-in-minutes/the-
hypodermic-needle-theory/ So by having these strong opinions out there for
people who are not as educated as much as other can help influence the young
generation into believing things that they might not agree with if they learn
more about it. Therefore, shows that magazines and papers should be neutral
In their opinion to give these people an option to decide which sidetheir own
by looking at the two different sides and deciding which one they agree with.
In conclusion, I believe that Bias should not be allowed in factual writing. This
is becausethe media has too much influence on their audience and therefore
have too much power to change the mind of lots of people. I think people
should be able to speak their mind and havetheir opinions but have to talk
about the opposite opinion also so it gives the audience two different sides to
read from. I believe this is fair as the newspaper still are able to talk about
what they wantbut it allows people to have more information on the topic.
This is also a good thing for the papers as people will still buy their product
because there isn’t justone opinion. A bias opinion doesn’tmean that there
right but it also doesn’t mean they wrong as there is no right answer butif
there is a serious issuesuch as the Gun control in America I think people
shouldn’tbe able to talk about justone opinion and this is a big issueand

4. should have facts and information to educate the reader on the importance of
both sides. If America justposted papers talking how guns are a good thing this
will encourage people to think like this when they should be able to have their
own opinion on something that’s going to affect them. So I believe bias should
not be included in factual writing.