Bias Editorial

In the editorial I chose, Repeal Prohibition, Again by the Editorial Board, I noticed a few examples of bias. “It took 13 years for the United States to come to its senses and end Prohibition, 13 years in which people kept drinking, otherwise law-abiding citizens became criminals and crime syndicates arose and flourished.” The Editorial Board is being Confirmation Bias when stating this information. Confirmation Bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, focus on and remember information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions. The Editorial Board is using information that happened 13 years ago to defend their opinion and also information that has nothing to do with marijuana. They are comparing drinking and marijuana because they think it’s ridiculous that drinking has been legal while marijuana  has not been. They are saying crime flourished do to marijuana not being legalized, which they are just assume is correct.

Another form of bias the authors’ made was In-Group Bias by coming to the conclusion that “...after a great deal of discussion among the members of The Times’s Editorial Board, inspired by a rapidly growing movement among the states to reform marijuana laws.” In’Group Bias is the tendency for people to give preferential treatment to others they perceive to be members of their own groups. Everyone in the Editorial Board agrees that marijuana should be legalized. They feel like since there is a rapid movement among the states to reform marijuana laws the board will try to push as a group to get what they want. Another example of Bias is Hot-hand fallacy which is the fallacious belief that a person who has experienced success has a greater chance of further success in additional attempts. “But neither are there such answers about tobacco or alcohol, and we believe that on every level — health effects, the impact on society and law-and-order issues — the balance falls squarely on the side of national legalization. That will put decisions on whether to allow recreational or medicinal production and use where it belongs — at the state level.” As time goes on, the use of marijuana has a greater chance of becoming legalized because of the slow rate that it is becoming legal other places. This is bias because it is saying due to the legalization around the nation, it is more likely that marijuana will become legal.

"We considered whether it would be best for Washington to hold back while the states continued experimenting with legalizing medicinal uses of marijuana, reducing penalties, or even simply legalizing all use. Nearly three-quarters of the states have done one of these.” This would be considered Bandwagon Bias which is the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to groupthink and herd behavior. Since the authors’ stated that nearly all the states have taken action and have done some form of legalization, than other states have followed in their footsteps and looked into legalizing marijuana. The last form of bias in this editorial is Stereotyping, which is expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without having actual information about that individual. “Even worse, the result is racist, falling disproportionately on young black men, ruining their lives and creating new generations of career criminals.” This is stereotyping because race is playing a factor by stating young black men will destroy their lives and form criminals in the future if marijuana is legalized. This editorial has many different forms of bias to manipulate the reader to see through the perspective of the authors’.