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Anyone arguing for “owning your bias” is trying to justify using media to influence instead of inform.

We can never be perfectly unbiased, but we can certainly try. We dedicated entire higher education programs to the process of doing exactly that — it was called journalism.

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I'm not saying that media should be used to influence instead of inform.

Rather, I'm saying you should acknowledge that you are influenced and will influence, and be explicit about what those influences are. This is the only way to actually combat bias; not by eliminating bias, but by making it visible, so it can be accounted for with everyone's thinking.

I think if you e.g. added "Disclaimer: this is super left-wing biased" (or equivalently "Disclaimer: this is super right-wing biased") to the top of a heavily biased article, you are not appreciably combating bias.

If you say "Our goal is to represent the views of the right wing", then you're making it clear that you are being honest about your perspective. This then encourages both you and your readers to be aware of the bias, which does combat hidden influence of bias, making it more likely to be a choice.

I agree that it is more honest. I disagree that it has a significant impact on the readers' awareness of the bias.

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