Many in the news media and journalism face constant charges of political bias in their reporting. WCBS 880 morning anchor Wayne Cabot prefers it that way.
During an appearance on the Bartholomewtown podcast with WPRO’s Bill Bartholomew, Cabot said he actually enjoys when he’s challenged on reporting or news selections.
“I like the fact that people will challenge what we do and they should. And the fact that we’ve been accused, and I personally have been accused, of being left wing and right wing tells me maybe I’m finding the right course somewhere,” admitted Wayne Cabot. “We’ve always been non-political, a-political as much as that is possible.
“None of us has no bias. We’ve all grown up with family that we’ve learned from, friends, schools on the elementary and high school level to whatever college we went, to whatever town we lived in. Even just going on the air and giving the most unbiased coverage of any story possible is still biased because hey, this is the story that I chose to put on first.”
The WCBS 880 anchor continued by adding that bias is something we all inherently have, but fighting it is another matter.
“Hopefully, you’ll find people who’ve been doing this long enough, or have enough of an insight that you’ll agree with their general editorial presentation, but nothing is without bias. Of course, there’s obvious left and right-wing bias, which you do everything you can to avoid. I’ve got a political point of view. I make sure that I listen to other political points of view, as distasteful as I can find them sometimes, especially on talk radio. And I find it very instructive because I want to challenge my belief system. I want to challenge what I think are the facts.
And it’s a crazy world now where we have more than one set of facts, but it does seem that way. Sometimes what I believe are the facts, I’m challenged on. Clearly there’s only one set of facts, but you can cherry-pick anything to suit your presentation and your point of view. That’s where the discipline and training and experience come into play. You kind of don’t fall for those traps or try very hard not to.”
