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There is always western bias. You are in the U.S., with your U.S. perspective, probably reading a piece by someone with a U.S. perspective. How can you possibly write accurately about Malaysia if you've never grown up there, don't know the social customs, don't know what people do there, don't know the slang, don't have friends or relatives there, never had a job there, never went to school there, never eaten the food there, never cooked the food there, etc. Bias exists because you can't possibly write about something you have no perspective on, and you can't find a good writer with relevant perspective on every single event in the world; there will never be unbiased news because it is impossible to get perspective on every event.


What I find fascinating is how we can quantify this bias. Here are two examples of my research on the NY Times with terrorism coverage by region + general coverage by country:

How Media Fuels our Fear of Western Terrorism: https://www.nemil.com/s/part2-terrorism.html

Visualizing 10 years of International Coverage in The New York Times: https://www.nemil.com/s/nytimes-international-coverage.html




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