Grappling with the Gray #118: Conscious bias?

Which is worse: conscious bias or unconscious bias?

That's the question that drives the conversation when Paul Glover, 🟦 Melissa Hughes, Ph.D., and Annette Taylor join the ethics panel to Grapple with the Gray.

Here is our topic:

On March 10th, Washington Post columnist and Associate Editor Ruth Marcus resigned after four decades with the paper. She accused Chief Executive and Publisher Will Lewis of killing her column criticizing owner Jeff Bezos' announcement that the opinion section will henceforth only publish views consistent with the values of individual liberties and free markets.

For years, conservatives have condemned large metropolitan newspapers for liberal bias. But those objections were against political ideology creeping into hard news stories, and also for misrepresentation of facts in support of opinion. Not for the opinions themselves.

The original intent of the op-ed page was to present alternative views to those of a paper’s own editorial perspective, thereby promoting integrity of thought and advancing spirited debate.

This new policy of Jeff Bezos appears to be yet another example of backlash and reactionaryism, objecting so fiercely that objectors become the object of their own objections.

In 2017, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran an editorial responding to claims of bias by declaring, “Yes, we are biased, and that’s the way it should be.” I responded in a letter that opinion and bias are two entirely different things. I received a two-line reply stating, essentially, “No, we’re right and you’re wrong.”

So, is there a difference between opinion and bias? Do newspapers have an obligation to present opposing viewpoints? And who should set editorial policy: the owner, the publisher, the editor-in-chief, or an editorial board?

Meet this week’s panel:

Paul Glover is the No B.S. Leadership Coach - Guiding Leaders on Their Journey to Their Mountaintop. He is a TEDx speaker and author of Work Quake: Making the Seismic Shift to a "Knowledge Economy"

Melissa Hughes is Founder and Principal of the Andrick Group, applying recent brain research to improve employee engagement, company culture, team dynamics, and innovation.

Annette Taylor is a researcher of evolutionary psychology and biology. Her website, Cavedweller Club, offers guidance and insights on how we can better understand the way our own hardwiring influences unconscious bias and decision making.


#ethics
#leadership
#culture
#accountability
#mindset