Everyone has had experiences that create some bias one way or another, even journalists; but since our duty is to inform the masses, we do our best to not show it, and that’s extremely important.

Prejudice in favor of or against, one thing, person or group in comparison to another, is very common. One may like Cinnamon Toast Crunch more than Cheerios, one might like peanut butter instead of jelly, or just prefer to hang out with a particular friend over another. Not all biases really impact your life negatively like some believe.

However, there are instances in which your bias should never show, and being part of the media is one of them.

I am a political science major here at Point Park, and I am involved in all forms of media. Obviously, I write and I’ve reported on stories for the Globe throughout multiple instances. I also used to have a radio show on WPPJ, and I am the creator, as well as the current producer and co-anchor of U-View’s political show, “On Point with Politics.”

“On Point with Politics” is a news-style show that allows everyone to become politically knowledgeable, as the show solely focuses on political activity from a hyper-local level to an international level.

Now the problem is, as a political science major who wants to become involved in politics, I have strong political biases along with every other citizen of the world. Biases on political candidates, parties and even the way the state and federal governments decide to manage their budgets. Some might even think this is a conflict of interest, however I don’t let my political views influence how I report on such stories.

Thanks to the journalistic skills I’ve acquired, along with an editing process that checks and balances the scripts on our show, I do my very best to inform our audience of the political news without a single opinion filtering through. This is very possible and is practiced by most media outlets, because our duty is not to create propaganda, but to inform.

Which brings us to the importance of unbiased reporters, especially in college. We all are in an educational environment. There are those of us who want to learn, and there are those of us who want to teach. Informing is a way of teaching, as you are essentially giving individuals additional information they didn’t know before. We are providing our audience with information that can potentially affect the rest of their lives.

It is our responsibility to inform as many as possible of the full story; it is our responsibility to acquire all of the facts, not to create alternative facts, regardless of what we think of such stories, which is why we have to report the truth.

As the media, we have the power to enter households, whether those are actual houses or dorms. Unbiased reporters provide such households with knowledge that might affect their decisions in the future, and we know that. Which is why we know we can’t just tell the audience what we think, we have to tell them what actually happened, because if we don’t we become exactly what we are being called, fake news.