Declarations of Bias

In the lead up to election day, Britain's national newspapers declared their support for one party or another. This could be understood as declaring their bias and you may assume from this that their reporting is less than balanced. On the other hand, some papers seem to have switched their allegiance from one party to another, indicating that they are in no party's pocket, and the very fact that they declare where they stand gives readers the chance to factor that into their decisions. More here from Yahoo News.

I'd expect papers to be just as biased about single issues raised through Interactive Democracy and their contribution to the debate is both welcome and worrying, as they may have an all too powerful impact on referendum results. This power can be balanced in two ways:

1. legal punishments for printing falsehoods;
2. presenting all sides of the arguments on the interactive web site used for voting.