How Our Own Biases Color Our Writing

And why it's okay.

This is a variation of a post I published in September, 2021, when nobody was yet reading my stuff. It needed a bit of updating. It bears repeating. The questions still need to be answered. Thanks for indulging me as I attempt to work through this again.

You’ve noticed, I’m sure, that we’re in a panic over the upcoming presidential election, and opinions are flying all over the place. Every day it’s something new and terrible and scary and bizarre.

You know this, I know, but let me just repeat it for emphasis on the bizarre: On Saturday, July 13, at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, just as the ex-president was beginning to speak, a young man climbed onto the roof of a building not more than 40 yards away from the stage. A couple of people said they noticed him but the scores of people in charge of protecting Trump didn’t.

He began shooting. The bullets from the gunman’s AR-15 struck and killed a firefighter trying to protect his family, and injured two others. The gunman is dead. Donald Trump’s ear may have been struck by a bullet or by a shard of teleprompter glass, but, oddly, there were no press conferences immediately afterward where authorities told what they knew, including the source of Trump’s injury.

It did look like blood but the injury was so mild, Trump, as the Secret Service struggled to get him off the stage, managed to ask for his shoes (which were strangely off his feet) and then stopped the move toward safety in order to do a few dramatic fist bumps and shout, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

That happened.

It’s classified now as a genuine assassination attempt and I have no reason to doubt that. I chose to write about it in the way I did above because I lean toward writing opinions. I’m not a journalist. I’m not a classic reporter. I just write stories in ways that feel right to me.

In this case I’ve stayed pretty calm and haven’t actually written what I might have written if nobody had been killed or injured. If there hadn’t been real violence.

If Trump had just had his ear nicked by some lunatic throwing something—the way an irate Iraqi did when he threw his shoes at GWB in Baghdad in 2008—I would have worded this entire recap differently. There would have been snark, for sure.

(The Iraq shoe-throwing incident was, by the way, hilarious. GWB’s reaction was priceless. Not that I didn’t still despise him for Iraq, but it was a pretty unforgettable laugh break.)

If we’re writing anything close to opinion, our biases are showing, no matter what we write. They live in our heads and share our creative space and burrow into our work. They’re such an integral part of us we wouldn’t know how to express ourselves without them, yet we’re often not even aware they’re there.

We think we can be objective, but our biases know otherwise. They’ve been with us forever and they’re going to insert themselves. They can’t help it and neither can we.

I’ve been writing opinions for decades now, so I think I understand my own biases. I know them when I see them. That’s not to say I’m always happy with them. And that’s not to say as life goes on I haven’t changed my mind. But when I look back on my body of work the fact that I’m an unabashed liberal in the old-fashioned sense comes through loud and clear.

It comes through in everything I write, in everything I read, in everything I do in my daily life. I’m comfortable as an old-style liberal, but I recognize it’s not for everybody. That’s the fine line I have to respect when I’m writing anything outside of opinions. Or maybe even inside opinions.

The problem with opinionating is that it’s insidious. It’s hard to stop, even in settings where it might not be appreciated. I can’t assume you agree with my political opinions, for example, yet they often wiggle their way in, even when I’m not aware it’s happening.

But here’s the thing: I’m okay with it. A big part of blogging or personal writing—even creative writing—is being honest about who we are. Unless we’re doing straight reporting, everything we write requires building a personality.

We strive to be recognized by our writing, and the way we do that is by writing like no one else. If we’re in it for the long haul, our readers count on us being us. In fact, over time they’ll demand it. If we don’t develop a persona that stays mostly constant, our audience will eventually drift away. They’ll move on to someone with the courage of their convictions.

They want to relate, even if they might disagree from time to time. There has to be some common ground. If there isn’t, they’ll leave. And again, that’s okay.

Once we’re brave enough to open up and display our biases we’re sure to lose some readers who can’t abide our take on things. They’re not wrong to leave; they’re simply acting on their own…

What’s that word again?

Biases.

We’re never going to agree on everything, and no writer ever succeeded by trying to please the world. So is there a way to stay objective while at the same time being true to ourselves? Is staying objective even a goal?

Let’s talk about it. What’s your experience? How conflicted are you about revealing your own biases? Or could it be you don’t have any?

The truth now…