In America, the media has been at the center of controversy for quite some time, creating wide ranging mistrust. The Society For Professional #Journalists tapped Rod Hicks to look into the causes it, and he headed to Casper. There he launched the 6-month long Casper Project where 36 participants raised their opinions with respect to media bias. 

A Gallup poll showed that Wyoming was at the top list of the states affected by perceived media bias and distrust, leading Hicks to pick Casper for this series of discussions, which tried to reverse the troubling trend of media mistrust in Wyoming and find common ground for the media and citizens.

Many think that the media is biased and may not represent the interests of its citizens. There are two ways of considering what media bias is.

One way is to focus on the stories that news media groups choose to cover. For instance, one media outlet can report about a politician’s slow response to a pandemic, while another decides not to cover the story entirely. This is what is referred to as media gatekeeping. Put simply, bias can occur when a media outlet fails to cover a story, considered by some as relevant. 

The second way bias occurs is when different media outlets cover a similar story differently. In other words, one media channel can focus on a particular aspect of a story, while a second media channel emphasizes a different aspect of the same story. This affects public opinion as it causes different people to perceive the same story differently. 

The question for debate still remains, are Wyoming media outlets biased and not representative of its citizens?