Bias? What Bias? We Report, You Decide... Wednesday, September 3 and Thursday, Sept 4

On Wednesday's class we also discussed the topic of historical bias. Ideally, the historian and the journalist have much the same code; only the journalist deals with the here and now and the historian deals with the past. This professional code requires that the writer must do their best to keep their personal attitudes and feelings separate from the matter they are covering. This is a wonderful ideal, but in practicality, no one can completely separate themselves and what they believe to be true and real from the way in which they account for, discuss, and analyse historical subjects.



So as such, I will be asking you to be careful when reading material and always assume a bias exists. Conversely, when I ask you to do the work of the historian, I expect that you will attempt to minimize your own bias as much as you can. More on this as we go on in the course...



Our discussion on this topic was advanced using the American Civil War as the backdrop.



I began by asking you to draw a general conclusion about the war. The class came to a consensus that the Civil War brought about the end of slavery. Based on this statement I asked if it followed logically then that the original aim of the war was to end slavery. The class agreed. However, we discovered that originally Abraham Lincoln campaigned on a policy where slavery could be maintained in the South -- only no new states could come in as slave states. We were able to conclude that there were other factors that caused slavery to become the central issue of the war.



Of course, one man's truth can be another man's bias...



Read the following blog and decide for yourself. The writer is trying to highlight bias of a sort in some historical writing he has found. Does he however, reveal another bias?



http://libertycorner.blogspot.com/2008/06/historical-bias-101.html



Here is another example. Read the story of claimed historical bias at the site of the Alamo. Did the writer succeed in minimizing their bias as well? What are some of the ways we can check this? Be prepared to discuss these issues briefly in class on Wednesday, September 10.



http://www.statesman.com/specialreports/content/specialreports/forgottenplaces/15alamo_rs.html