Nasty news and fake facts

“It’s not just about art, it’s also about maintaining and capturing the history and culture of the community, which has been stripped away in so many ways.”

According to Nelson, who was also involved in the 2019 #DesignTheHill, one way that art will be used to represent Hilltop’s history is through murals. “As you see the light rails come through, you’re going to see more depictions of leaders from the community from over the years,” he said.

In developing their parcels, THA is “working with local artists to, yes, put in art installations, but also to help in the design process of designing what the actual buildings look like in a way that is inviting to current residents, that maintains the feel of the neighborhood and the community and that reflects the historical culture of the community.” This includes “picking the color palettes for the building[s] and incorporating architectural pieces that are more reflective of the population that lives there,” Torrez said.

For instance, to help design the building on the parcel containing Mr. Mack Ltd. and Terry’s Barbershop, which the Horizon Housing Alliance, a non profit organization that provides housing to those in need, and THA are collaborating on the development of, the Horizon Housing Alliance hired local artist Tiffany Hammonds. “She worked with the architect to design the exterior facade. It’s done in traditional African colors and

Does your news make you mad? If it appeals to your emotions, it may be a source of bias. Photo by Parker Briggs.

by Parker Briggs

THA is also working to collaborate with the other developers designing the buildings near the organization’s parcels in order to maintain the community’s artistic vision. Torrez said, “All the buildings will work together too. I think that’s kind of the idea behind having these artists, is they’re going to work together, so it’s not like one building and then a different one and they’re disjointed. It’s this idea of having kind of a shared vision.”

“A quilt,” Schur added.

Everyone has their comfort zone. When it comes to media preferences, this is particularly evident.

It’s up for debate who’s news is the ‘mainstream’, but there’s no doubt that between media outlets one can detect a spectrum of ideologies.

The cause of this lies at the root of journalism. As professional and objective as reporters pride themselves to be, their basic trade is storytelling. And there are always as many takes on a story as there are people to tell it. In presenting their perspective of a story, it’s inevitable that journalists’ beliefs and biases are also conveyed.

Upper School for Girls English teacher Laura Barber leads a specially-developed unit on bias in media, and is expert in the INKWELL | APRIL 2021

art of identifying bias.

“The first thing I look out for is emotionally-loaded language,” Barber said. “News with bias tends to be effective because it has lots of emotion behind it. If you notice you’re having a strong emotional response to the language, that’s a sign that it's probably biased.”

“Emotions are what make it appealing. It’s more entertaining. Even if what you’re feeling is outrage, it still has a certain appeal,” she said. Media that exaggerates or misconstrues facts for dramatic effect can produce an even stronger emotional reaction.

People are drawn to what excites them, and this often means a specific ideology. “Even if people aren’t strongly aware of what a source’s bias may be,” said Barber, “they realize that some sources are more appealing to them and gravitate towards the ones that share their biases.”

Currently, the two most popular news shows on cable are "Hannity" and "Tucker Carlson Tonight," both airing on Fox News. Fox, the most-viewed network in America, has shows that are both reliable and unreliable, neutral and patently conservative. But the two most biased shows on the network? "Hannity" and "Tucker Carlson Tonight."

“I feel like that’s very telling,” said Barber. She theorizes that conservatives are willing to accept higher unreliability from Fox News because it is the only source from which conservative media is available.