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Example situation

We want to know whether dogs or cats make the better pet so we look online and find differing views over two websites:

Dog pals states that dogs are the best pet. CatMates says that cats are better pets than dogs.

We would need to do more research to find out if one was right and the other wrong, or if they are both wrong.

This could be an example of bias.

Bias

Bias is where a person / company / website has a particular preference. They might choose to present information to make the listener / reader see their viewpoint rather than giving a true balance of all sides.

We are probably used to hearing comments that are not robust and, hopefully, can realise when this is the case. For example:

‘My aunt owns the best café in town’

or

‘"We are the best football team.’

While these comments may, in fact, be true there is a clear bias here towards the café or football team because the people speaking have a personal connection to them.

...But if that information is displayed in a graph it must be correct, right?

Wrong!