The Onion on Bias: “Duh”

On a lighter note, here is The Onion in 2003 on "Media Criticized for Biased Hometown Sports Reporting":

ALBANY, NY—Members of the national media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting released a 255-page report Monday criticizing the American media for severely biased local sports coverage.

"In our extensive study of the nation’s sports sections and broadcasts, we documented countless examples of shamelessly one-sided reporting, obvious speculation, and bald editorializing masquerading as journalism," FAIR spokesman Scott Wilborough said. "Coverage was heavily, sometimes brazenly, weighted toward the teams from a media source’s own area. To look at the data, you would almost think that sports journalists aren’t held to the same standards as other reporters." ….

The point here is that everyone knows local sports reporting is biased – that is the way they want it.   If we are to overcome biases like this there is little hope of gaining wider support by exposing the problem – we’re pretty much on our own.

How many other biases are like this?   And I wonder if sports betting is illegal in part so people are not confronted with more objective evaluations of local sports.