Written task: Interview

Interview

Sean Carter: Good evening, people of USA. Welcome again to a new episode of “An hour with Sean”, the most interesting late show of the country. Tonight we have a very interesting guest; we are going to interview Thomas Parker, the editor of one of the most important newspapers of the whole world, the USA Informer. We are going to know important issues about bias in the news. Good evening, Thomas.

Thomas Parker: Good evening, Sean! I’m glad to be here, thanks for the invitation.

Sean Carter: It’s very good for the programme to have you here. Well, let’s get started. First of all, tell me about your previous life before your work at the USA Informer.

Thomas Parker: well, I graduated from the University of Cambridge, in England, in the career of journalism. After my graduation, I travelled to USA looking for job opportunities. After some time, I received a call from the USA Informer, which I considered a very good opportunity for my career as a journalist, and now I’m here.

Sean Carter: So, Thom, tell me, what is your specific role as a newspaper editor?

Thomas Parker: well, in general terms, I’m the one that selects which information is going to be presented in a piece of news and which one not, the specific words of the title and the article, the images used, etc. In other words, I have to bias the information.

Sean Carter: Interesting. Tell me, how can we detect bias in a piece of news?

Thomas Parker: There are four pillars of bias, saying it in some way. They are: framing, omission, limiting debate and word choice. In simple words, framing is the perspective of how the piece of news is covered, omission is which information you include in the article and which one not, limiting debate is information that can have only one position, and word choice is the manipulation of words in such a way that the sentence meaning is subtly changed. Also you can find bias in the use of euphemisms and in the images. The job’s editor is to manipulate the information in a subtly way.

Sean Carter: I see. Can you tell us a personal recent example of each pillar?

Thomas Parker: I’m glad you ask. I remember one that I did last week. Did you realize that Chile lost against Brazil in the World Cup? Well, we, as a newspaper, think that they made an awesome match, so we wrote the article from the perspective of the good match of Chile. That is framing. In case of the word choice, one perfect example is the title of the piece of news. It was: “AFTER AN AMAZING MATCH, CHILE IS OUT OF THE WORLD CUP”. Instead of saying this, we could write “BRAZIL ADVANCES TO QUARTER FINALS”. So the words we chose were “with” the Chilean team. In case of omission, as we were presenting the article from the perspective of the amazing match of Chile, we didn’t include in the piece of news that Brazil attacked almost all the extra time, and that they played better. Finally, in the limiting debate we set, for saying it in some way, that it was a good match for Chile using the statistics, so the reader was unable to say the otherwise, because there was a statistic proof. But hey, don’t think that I’m saying that the newspaper was against Brazil. We were only taking the perspective of Chile, without detracting the good game that Brazilian team offered. We also included that, but in a less noticeable way.

Sean Carter: ah. And when the information is biased, you have always to include these four pillars?

Thomas Parker: no, it isn’t necessary to include all of them. These are ways of detecting bias in a piece of news, but many times I use one or two of them.

Sean Carter: but, tell me Thom, doesn’t a newspaper has to be objective?

Thomas Parker: that’s true, and I’m not saying otherwise, but it doesn’t mean that a newspaper tells all the truth in the most objective way. A newspaper tells the information, but in such a way that they select how to present the information to the public. I’m not saying that the newspapers invent information, but that they present the information how they want it to be presented using the techniques I mentioned before. Indeed, my friend, I dare to say that all the information is biased, in one way or another. The editor’s job is to do this but in a subtly way, as I said before, and also not crossing the line! Because bias has limits

Sean Carter: what do you mean with all the information?

Thomas Parker:  well, if you ask the manager of a newspaper, he will tell you that they tell the information completely objective. But I think that this is impossible. For example, when you tell a friend a story that you lived, you will tell it from your perspective, from what you saw, so you are telling the story in a biased way.

Sean Carter: wow, these are strong statements. Regrettably, Thom, we are running out of time, so this is my last question. Which are that limits that you mentioned before?

Thomas Parker: well, you have to be careful about being too partial. If you want to, you have to bias the information but not defend one side or the other. As I said, you have to be subtly, and not transform the article in a completely subjective one. You can’t transform the facts in points of view. Those are the limits I refer to.

Sean Carter: ok, so you have to be very careful about manipulating the information! Well, thank you so much for this fascinating interview, Thom. Good evening, people of USA, and thanks for this amazing rating. I’ll wait you the next week with the continuation of this topic, with a special guest expert in stereotypes, Jessica Read!

Rationale (291 words)

For the written task I wrote an interview between a show presenter, Sean Carter, and a newspaper editor, Thomas Parker. The interview is situated in a fictional TV show with fictional characters. We studied bias and manipulation in the mass media during the year, so I chose this topic to my interview, developing the topic through an expert in this one. Listening to a newspaper editor, even he is a fictional one, the texts generates more credibility in the reader, listening the words from an expert.

Through this interview I developed the principal elements of manipulating the information, such us the techniques used to recognize this bias, for example, when the interviewer asks Thomas this question: “Interesting. Tell me, how can we detect bias in a piece of news?” This type of text is an easy way to guide the conversation and to talk about this topic which I’m interested in.

With a newspaper editor as the interviewed person, the topic of bias in the information can be easily explained, being an expert the one that is talking about it, and also it is a perfect way to present the most important points of basing the information. Also in the interview there is given an example of a real and recent event, giving even more credibility of the topic developed showing an example of a real event and that most people are familiarized with.

In terms of the language used, I presented a colloquial language, not too formal and not too informal, always with the purpose of getting more confident with the reader. For example, when Thomas says: “Good evening, Sean! I’m glad to be here, thanks for the invitation”. We appreciate more nearness with the audience from the show’s guest.