Media

be reported; rather, it is a description of what is likely or unlikely to be reported

Several points should be made. All of us rationalize our own behavior: we are all naturally more likely to explain what we do and what we think in self-serving ways, though we can sometimes overcome this tendency by trying to inform ourselves and then trying to think critically about our new knowledge. But in the effort to inform ourselves, we may constantly suppress information that conflicts with our beliefs; and in our efforts to interpret new knowledge, we may constantly suppress interpretations that conflict with our beliefs. Therefore self-serving psychological filters are always present at the level of the individual

But in social settings, effects of these individual psychological filters can be amplified. We often interact primarily with other individuals with somewhat similar backgrounds and circumstances, and so we are more likely in our social interactions to learn facts that do not challenge our beliefs and to hear interpretations of the world that do not challenge our beliefs. Our peers (like us) may be inclined to suppress information that conflicts with their beliefs, or interpretations that conflict with their beliefs; and because our peers are usually much like us, the information and interpretations they provide will often reinforce our own self-serving beliefs, just as we reinforce theirs

The effect may be heightened when additional factors limit the peer group. For example, media corporations make money selling advertising, and may be owned by other corporations with definite interests. Persons with too much interest in stories adversely affecting the corporate owner are unlikely to be hired as top management, and they in turn will hired subordinates who share their own views. Stories which make advertisers look bad, or which sully the reputation of the corporate owner, are much less likely to be covered, and any reporter who concentrates too much on such stories will eventually be regarded as unproductive, because the stories are very often deemed uninteresting and unpublishable. But similar rules will affect stories which contradict simply general beliefs of persons working in that media corporation: each person who has to OK a story has a certain chance of rejecting it, and if the story contradicts widely held beliefs, then it will almost certainly be rejected by someone in the chain of command

This filtering is often (though not always) entirely free from deliberate intent to deceive. Almost nobody says "I don't want this to become widely known." Rather people say "This story doesn't pass my smell test, and I'll need a lot more information before I believe it." All sorts of stories can pass through the filters, but they only pass through in low numbers