Bias in Washington Post and People's Daily Newspaper towards COVID-19

Abstract

This research discusses the occurrence of bias in news articles of The Washington Post and People’s Daily Newspaper. The purpose of this research is to reveal the bias in selected news articles using textual analysis. To fulfil the purposes mentioned before, this research used Systemic Functional Linguistics by Halliday (2004). This research applied a qualitative method. The data of this research are the selected clauses of the news articles by applying a sampling method. The result showed that bias exists in those chosen articles. The implication was seen from the linguistic choices used by the writers of The Washington Post and People‟s Daily Newspaper. It is obtained through the analysis of Verb Process, Mood, and Modality used by the writers which imply a negative image towards both the US and China. This research also revealed that through the linguistic choices, the information about COVID-19 served to the readers is constructed by the writers and the implication of bias is disclosed within the news articles written by The Washington Post and People’s Daily Newspaper.