Bias and preconceived notions

It happens a lot. [Link]

Jay Rosen points us to a worthwhile read by Lane Wallace in The Atlantic, concerning "the bias of veteran journalists." The basic concept is that veteran journalists think they know so much about a story that they have an angle going into the story, and only ask questions to support that story. It is not claiming that this is a political bias -- which is the usual charge thrown out at reporters -- but that the bias is in the fact that they think they know the story before they really know the story. As an example, she points to her own recent experience on a certain piece of technology:

A few weeks ago, I attended the public launch of a company's product that had, until that point, been kept tightly under wraps. The product involved a breakthrough approach and new technology that had the potential of having a revolutionary impact on its industry, as well on consumers around the world. Unlike most of the journalists covering the event, I was not an expert on that particular industry. It wasn't my normal "beat." The reason I was there was because I'd been interviewing the company's CEO over the previous several months for a book project. But that also meant that while I wasn't an expert about the industry in general, I was in the odd position of knowing more about the company's "secret" product than any other journalist in the room.

It was an eye-opening experience. A lot of major news outlets and publications were represented at the press conference following the announcement. A few very general facts about the product had been released, but the reporters had only been introduced to details about it a half hour earlier. There was still a lot about how it worked, how it differed from other emerging products, and why the company felt so confident about its evolution and economic viability, that remained to be clarified.

But the reporters' questions weren't geared toward getting a better understanding of those points. They were narrowly focused on one or two aspects of the story. And from the questions that were being asked, I realized--because I had so much more information on the subject--that the reporters were missing a couple of really important pieces of understanding about the product and its use. And as the event progressed, I also realized that the questions that might have uncovered those pieces weren't being asked because the reporters already had a story angle in their heads and were focused only on getting the necessary data points to flesh out and back up what they already thought was the story.

Fascinating stuff. She then backs this up by pointing to a recent study on "experts" and how they tend to be worse at predicting things, often because they're so certain of the outcome that they miss key elements of why something is different, or why what they expect won't happen. That is, they approach the scenario with a knowing viewpoint, and therefore don't understand why it's a big deal. This leads her to quote an anecdotal claim by a friend who's an editor, saying that new beat reporters ask the best questions, because they don't assume they already know the answers to stuff.