Section 3 — The Truth
Session 9 of 16
Monday, June 29, 2026
Bias and framing
All news is framed. Framing means choosing what to include, how to describe it, and what to leave out — choices that shape how audiences think about a story even before they have all the facts. In this session we examine different types of bias, how framing works, and how to spot it in the news you read every day.
Vocabulary for this session
biasframingconfirmation biasecho chamberfilter bubbleobjectivityslantagendaselection biaspriming
Grammar focus
Grammar focus: Nominalization — how turning verbs into nouns hides agency and obscures responsibility. "A decision was made" (who decided?) vs "the president decided". "Violence erupted" (it appeared from nowhere?) vs "police used force". Nominalizations are among the most powerful tools of evasion in English journalism.
Come prepared to discuss
"Can you ever read news without bias? Is it even possible to be objective — or is the goal transparency instead?"
Before this session
Prepare: Spend 10 minutes reading news only from sources you normally disagree with or avoid. How did it feel? What did you notice?
Task-Based Activity
The Framing Test. Show two versions of the same story — one framed sympathetically, one critically — about the same person, policy, or event. Students identify: What facts are in both versions? What is only in one? What language choices are different? Debrief: If you only read one version, what would you believe? Why does this matter?
Career-Oriented Take — How to Frame It
Confirmation bias — the tendency to favor information that confirms what we already believe — affects decision-making in business just as it does in politics. Teams that don't challenge their own assumptions make worse decisions. The habit of actively seeking disconfirming information is a professional skill as much as an intellectual one.
Big Picture
The "filter bubble" — the algorithmic curation of news and information to match what you already believe — was identified as a major societal problem by Eli Pariser in 2011. Since then, social media algorithms have dramatically intensified the phenomenon. Understanding this is the first step to escaping it: deliberately seeking out sources that challenge you.
Current Events Take
Ask students: What news are you NOT seeing? What stories are probably happening right now that your news feed isn't showing you? How would you go about finding them? This question makes the filter bubble personal and actionable.
Homework (assign after session)
Read the same news story from three different outlets with different political orientations (left, center, right — or different countries). Write a 150-word comparison: What is the same? What is different? What does this tell you about framing?