Choosing a reliable news source is important to receiving unbiased media because of how

certain media is monetized. For example, Media sources make their money based on their

popularity from all their viewers. The media sources selling advertising, while depending on the

popularity, make a certain amount of money on that ad space (Schoen 15). This encourages

media companies to publish clickbait in order to draw their audience in to increase their viewing

count. This is a dangerous path that leads to extreme media bias and fake news based on the

audience that media sources are trying to bait in.

Media sources claim to be a great source of information but, due to this monetization,

they increasing fail to report accurately. Recently, one of the biggest youtubers, Pewdiepie, was

reported to have quit youtube by many mainstream media sources. This information was not true

and was later directly denounced by the youtube star with him saying, “all I said was that I

would be going on a short mental break near the start of this year” (Pewdiepie 2019). The media

wouldn’t be able to capitalize on the story of him taking a break as well as him completely

quitting. The people clicking on the articles would boost page views and increase money made

from advertisements. These medias are spreading fake news in order to get clicks because they

have a motive too based on the way they get paid. The idea of News media getting paid through

the government and not by selling advertisements would give that media platform no incentive to

post fake news, overall increasing the amount of real news in circulation.

An argument can be made that if media sources are monetized by the government, then it

would violate the first amendment. This is far from the truth, in fact, this is quite the opposite.
Right now, the media are locked by the positions that their viewers expect them to be in and can

not post outside of that because of how valuable the viewers are. If news sources were paid by

the government, then they would be encouraged to post accurate information to make news less

polarized and cause more productive debating, leading to an increase in views and boost of the

media. In a statistical study done by Pew Research, it is shown that “these shifts are particularly

pronounced among politically engaged Americans” (Polarization 4). The data shows that most of

the political bias that directly affects the media’s truthfulness of information is affected by

people who are politically active and debating. This select group of people being active means

that sites will get more positive attention when giving more realistic and accurate news when the

sources don’t have to worry about being monetized.

Another problem that the current media promotes is the increase in media polarization

and how that leads to violence and verbal violence. Statistics show that “​there is solid evidence

that people seek out ideologically consistent viewpoints,” which shows that polarization directly

influences media, as well as the media encouraging polarization (Soergel 5). If media is

rewarded for creating a large division in the political spectrum, then the spectrum will only get

bigger and more distasteful. If the media was encouraged to make equal and factual content, then

that would decrease violence and increase political ideas and involvement.

The two biggest media sources on both sides of the political spectrum is Fox News, and

CNN. A website named All Sides who, “​After conducting deep editorial analysis and analyzing

user feedback, on March 27th, 2018, AllSides moved the Media Bias Rating for CNN Web News
from Center to Lean Left” (CNN 6). The same website found that “results from our three most

recent blind bias surveys also rated Fox as ‘Lean Right,” (FOX 4). This shows the obvious media

bias problem and the level that the problem is currently at. If media sources were paid by the

government, then there would be a natural movement back to the middle of the spectrum for

most major media.