Inverted Pyramid Bias

The inverted pyramid is another source of structural bias where a journalist organises information within a story with the most important information coming first. According to Louw (2005), the inverted pyramid “…directs journalists to grab audience attention at the start of the story, and pack the heart of the story into the first few paragraphs” (p.74). This means the lead paragraph in an inverted pyramid gives the overall summary of the story because the introduction and the first few paragraphs may be the only reason a reader decides to read the story. A good example is a story in the Daily News titled Decade of suffering with no respite by Dube (2014). From reading the first paragraph, one understands the story focuses on Operation Murambatsvina victims but the second and third paragraphs deviate from the victims and focuses on Robert Mugabe and ‘his’ Zanu-PF

Language should not be taken too lightly as it is a site of ideological struggle subjective to the user and where many different interpretations and meanings can be made. This means that whatever a journalist says and the tone they use in a news story determines their point of view or opinions which can be totally different to that of a reader leading to structural bias. A good example is a story by Mushava and Jena (2014) in the News Day tilted Grace Summons Church Leaders, where the reporter uses the word summons to demean the power of church leaders. When one reads the church leaders’ comments, they discover that they were invited and not forced like the reporter insinuates. Moreover, using the word ‘summons’ to describe how Mugabe called the meeting, immediately suggest she is too powerful and can forcibly call church leaders anytime she wants. The language used in the example expresses the ideologies of the reporters making them unbalanced, detached and lacking in neutrality rendering them