Biased News Writing from Slate

The article I found for this lesson, “Obama’s Middle East Gamble” by Fred Kaplan, was biased in the sense that the author had no facts, yet he used his opinion and “knowledge” of the matter to portray it as if he did. This article talks about Kaplan’s view of President Obama involving the U.S. in the Middle East’s “primitive squabbles”. He goes on to speak, as if he interviewed the president (which he didn’t), to explain how and why our government is involved, “Obama seems to have made a calculation that beating ISIS is so important that it’s worth doing even if it means a slight expansion of Iranian influence.” The author ends his article with predicting how the President feels about all of this, “These leaders also see Obama’s moves as marking a retreat from the Middle East generally—to which, on grimmer days, Obama must mutter, As if.”

I think this kind of writing riles people up and isn’t fit for the news. The author should have backed up his points with facts instead of reasoning. But, I guess he didn’t have any facts to go with his writing because this is the only article of its kind with this sort of “information”. Anyone could find out the facts of what’s really happening between the U.S. and the Middle East, but if someone wants to know what the President thinks, they should interview him themselves. If there were facts, I would have believed it; for instance, “It’s happened before”; Back this up with facts so the reader doesn’t completely doubt you.  Usually I would disregard this sort of article, but it was under “News” in a search engine. If someone is going to be biased or be a know-it-all-with-no-facts about a subject it should be under a different category; maybe it should be an editorial. 

Source:

Kaplan, Fred. "Why Obama May Be Making His Biggest Middle Eastern Gamble Yet." Slate. The Slate Group, 26 Mar. 2015. Web. 27 Mar. 2015.