Attribution, Images and Editing without Bias
Sue Ellen Christian · 2021
The Washington Post article explained why reporters took the time to scrutinize the tally: The figures matter because gun-control activists use them as evidence in their fight for bans on assault weapons, stricter background checks and other legislation. Journalists can pick and choose from data to tell the story their editor wants them to tell, or that would most appeal to their news audience. But honest journalists seek the data that is most representative of what is actually happening, and when the data is incomplete or only gives part of the picture, they explain that in their reporting. The preference for anecdotal instead of population-based information can lead people to mischaracterize events. Such information is called base-rate information; it is data about the percentage of cases in a population or the frequency with which an event occurs in a population. In journalism, attribution is the identification of the source of information in a news story.