Here's how you can spot and analyze bias in news stories using logical reasoning.

Look especially for triggering words or narratives designed to elicit anger or outrage. These emotions dull your ability to think rationally about the topic. Does the piece generalize too much from a single example or suggest something is true by merely asking if it could be? Does it imply that denials or a lack of evidence somehow *are* evidence? A "perfect" combo could look like this fictional news intro: "A local girl was found brutally murdered. Could a Satanic cult be responsible? FBI officials say, 'No,' but some say there's cause for alarm!" The sound bite takes an evocative fact (the death of a girl), a denial by the FBI, and "some say" to lend credence to an absurd hypothesis.

Jaggers said it best in "Great Expectations" when Pip makes a wrong supposition as to who Pip's benefactor has been: “Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.”

It can be intriguing for us to analyze whether news stories align with the facts or if they direct us toward a particular perspective. One point I'd like to add is that in some circumstances, maintaining a logical analysis of news might be hindered by an emotional viewpoint. For example, people directly affected by a war situation may have a stronger emotional reaction and interpretation of war news compared to those who try to analyze the same news from outside the conflict zone.

An example I've seen is in the local Zimbabwean state media especially pertaining to political stories. Words such as 'illegal sanctions' describing punitive economic embargos adopted by the West over Zimbabwe government's debt arrears and poor governance, or 'regime change agents' describing human rights oriented NGOs, Civic society, opposition party activists and independent journalists. These stories usually agitate overzealous ruling party youths to use violence against people associated with the West or opposition party figures.

Everyone has a perspective. Even statement-like lines in a news can have some unconscious bias. While a neutral mindset could be extremely difficult to come across, what a reader can do is filter out the bias on a percentage basis. A good starting point is the first few sentences which sets the tone for the rest of the news story. Sometimes it’s like a soccer match where you don’t belong to either of the parties, but you do have a soft corner for one of the teams. In such a scenario - to extract the real news out the story - the best option is to dig into the historical accounts from different sources. Case in point being the Israel-Palestine situation. Is it Israel-Palestine conflict or Israel-Hamas one? Take a step back. Analyze.

Verifying sources is crucial, as perspectives vary, and people have different interpretations. Before taking action based on any news or story, confirming the source provides reassurance and ensures accuracy.

Use of language, trends. Past stories...Comparisons with other stories. Educational background curriculum vitae, past commentaries and others

"Source check" is dependent on "faith" - lower "f." If you believe NASA is truthful, you will believe that we went to the moon 50 years ago. If not, it was a movie made in a studio. BTW, irrespective of all the tests and observations that prove a spherical earth, there are tens of thousands of Flat Earthers. Do we abide by the scientific method? if so how can we defend ourselves and our science when we cannot verify some science events? The test is simple: "If I bring irrefutable (by you) proof of my argument, will you accept it?" I don't have the proof; I want to know that you will change your position IF I succeed. E.g."If I prove that the Lord doesn't exist, will you become an Atheist?" Most will say "no", the rest will lie.

Often the same news item or issue is covered by multiple sources / channels / agencies and one can look at the content of multiple sources to see if they are all consistent in their narrative or if one of them (sometimes, even many of them) come up with a different spin. If these sources have been monitored over a length of time for various news items, their bias would have become apparent eventually (if there was a bias in the first place) Our experience in the current environment shows that bias is the rule rather than the exception in the case of most sources.

Exactly! Facts are what have occurred, while opinions are freely given by everyone. While opinions are important, facts are crucial for informing decisions and understanding the truth.

Whether something is stated as a fact or as an opinion should - normally - be evident from the construction of the sentence, but nowadays, many sources / channels are accustomed to pouting opinions as though they were facts...so this part of the analysis is quite a challenge nowadays, unless we have ONE or two sources whose credibility is beyond question.

"Balanced analysis" is not always a virtue, as there are sometimes clearly black-and-white issues that do not offer any room for a "contra" viewpoint. We call this "monkey-balancing" where some negatives are mentioned just for the sake of "appearing to be balanced" where there is no need to be balanced in the first place

(Use funny examples when teaching stats. Tap the students' sense of humor.) Hypothesis tests provide two options - reject and fail to reject the null hypothesis. But it is so mind opening to think of scenarios that would result with the same outcome using the same data. Survey says: men are more likely to be unfaithful than women. Explanations: 1. Women are more ethical than men 2. Men have the power/economics/social standing 3. Men lied 4. Since men and women are in equal numbers, unfaithful women must be more promiscuous (also read my contribution in #6) 5. Women lied etc.

Do some reverse hypothesis testing - the art of identifying explanations for the hypothesis outcome. e.g. the data of incarcerations by race is reasonably "pure" - if you define incarceration (felony, misdemeanor, capital), and race (census classification?) - and normalized. You will discover that green people are the least incarcerated per capita. Now do a reverse test, i.e. find hypotheses that will produce the same discovery. The green are the least incarcerated because 1. They don't get caught: high IQ 2. Cops are focused on Donald 3. Judges are green and biased 4. The green people die in jail quickly 5. The greens have an irreversible sense of ethics. Bill O'Reilly did not do us a service with his "No Spin New Reports". Thanks

Bias is easy to spot if you begin by considering the source. And the source includes channel of communication as well as original source of information. For example…original source….the same story covered by CNN and Fox, globally will be subtly, or not so subtly, different and both will skew differently than say BBC or Al Jezerra. That’s simple level one using basic comprehension skills. Now comes channel…broadcast/streaming or print are not inherently biased…refer to source abovehowever Social Media channels are problematic. By definition they have zero credibility on their own and worse, the content that fills them is often fake; tainted; biased or whatever. Bottom line. Read a lot. Be skeptical. Believe nothing until you can confirm