Challenging One-Sided Discourse and A Call for Academic Integrity

Annie Hirshman '24

May 15, 2024

 Last year, I took a Political Science course with a certain professor. This was not uncommon for me, as I am a Political Science major. However, for students of different majors, this particular course was required in order to obtain a liberal arts degree from Davidson College. Therefore, this class serves as a lot of students' sole exposure to the political science department. I was in the classroom with a variety of individuals, ranging from the Phi Delt jocks to the studio art majors. This classroom had everything and everyone. Since this was the first time a lot of them had taken a political science course, the dialogue and discourse was somewhat quieter. Therefore, I felt encouraged to speak up in class. I participated often, sharing my opinion on daily issues and historical events that had shaped American politics. I hoped that my voice would encourage others to participate. 

Sharing my opinion took a turn for the worse on a certain Wednesday morning. As the semester progressed, I noticed that the teacher was only sharing liberal skewed media sources. When they would discuss conservative matters, it had a negative connotation. They often referred to Republican politicians as a whole using derogatory terms, almost asserting that one bad apple was synonymous with the bunch. I discussed what occurred within the classroom numerous times outside, especially with my classmates that were rather conservative. They spoke of how they felt alienated in class, frightened at the outcome if they were to share their opinion. As a natural-born extrovert and rather excited by the idea of questioning the professor, I spoke up. I asked them why they chose to share only liberal-based news sources and strayed from conservative outlets in their journalistic sources. Their answer was short and sweet: because they were the only accurate sources to garner information from. I was shocked and severely taken aback by their statement. 

Later that day, the professor followed up with an email ‘defending’ their position. Without their intent, they confirmed that they do not “explicitly seek to include conservative outlets”. They spoke of how there was an ongoing movement to tar outlets that were not relatively conservative. They continued that accurate news sources were under attack for liberal alignment when in reality (their opinion), they were honest and true. The professor asserted that Republican politicians were guilty of executive aggrandizement for these efforts. In addition, they asserted that sources such as the New York Times and the Washington Post have been shown to have a very limited liberal bias, if any. 

As someone who seeks to challenge my own and other’s beliefs, I did some research to see if these statements were accurate or not. I checked multiple sources to see which sources were actually ideologically skewed. The Allsides Media Bias Chart, which collects its information based upon multi-partisan scientific analysis, including expert panels and surveys of thousands of everyday Americans, provided convincing material. It asserted that the New York Times, CNN, and Washington Post all skew left to the same extent that The Wall Street Journal skewed right. In addition, I analyzed the Ad Fontes Chart. In order to analyze their data and rate their sources, their methodology consists of multi-analyst ratings of news sources along seven categories of bias and eight of reliability. Each source is rated by an equal number of politically left-leaning, right-leaning, and centrist analysts. All analysts must hold a bachelor’s degree, while most hold a graduate degree and about one-third have obtained a doctoral degree. It argues that the Wall Street Journal is on the “skews right” section while the Washington Post, New York Times, and CNN are on the “skews left” section. 

The fact that Davidson supports a professor that only teaches one side is sad but not shocking. This is an ongoing issue at this college. I know for a fact that I am not the sole student who feels this way. Teachers are supposed to teach us how to think, not what to think. Through supporting professors that promote a one-sided discourse, that statement is contradicted daily. Considering that the college routinely refers to the “Davidson Experience” in a positive way, I can’t believe that this is what they have in mind. At the end of the day, solely teaching one side is indoctrination. Davidson, coming from a student who admires and cherishes you, please do better so future generations of students feel both free and encouraged to speak their mind, even if it is different than the majority.

Annie Hirshman is a 2024 Graduate of Davidson College with a degree in Political Science.

“Hi Annie,

I wanted to follow up with you about your question during class regarding why I assign a lot of content from the NYT and Washington Post (among other outlets) and don’t explicitly seek to include conservative outlets in my journalistic sources. My quick answer to you was that those two papers are the most highly regarded papers for providing factual information about American politics and have been shown to have very limited liberal bias. Since I’m all about providing evidence to back one’s claims, I wanted to send you one of the papers that confirms the non-partisan nature of these outlets http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2526461 . See, for example, the below figure, and how close the NYT and WaPo are to the center lines regarding their partisan slant (and how much more slanted some right leaning sources are – making them less appropriate to assign, in addition to – for the WSJ – much more expensive for students to access):

A broader issue is that there has been a significant effort by some politicians to tar outlets that are not explicitly right leaning (e.g., CNN, NYT, etc.) as being liberally biased. This effort has been successful, to some extent, in shifting people’s attitudes about these outlets, even though it is not actually factual. This is a pretty common technique of executives engaging in executive aggrandizement elsewhere (delegitimize media sources that might critique you so that people turn only to outlets favoring you and so that those media sources become more likely to favor you in response to your critique), and one that I think we need to be concerned about in the American case as well. It’s a real problem, because it means that students (in our case) and citizens more broadly are predisposed to see bias when presented with factual information. That undermines our ability to become accurately informed about what’s happening in American politics and government. I really really wish this was something that I could solve, but it is a much bigger problem than just our class. Nevertheless, by continuing to assign material from the two most significant papers of record in the US, I am hoping to ensure students get in the habit of reading credible, factual news and learning how to analyze the quality of what they encounter.

Happy to discuss this further.”