Its become fashionable to have the a mass media conspiracy against one's brand of politics. Unfortunately, media bias is more subtle- and more dangerous- than that.
The recent trendiness of politics has brought unbridled partisanship into the mainstream dialog. Where once you heard talk of soap operas and football, you now hear talk of the elitism of the left and archaic morals of the right. And the liberal media. (Or is it the conservative media?)
For starters, we need to properly define Liberalism and Conservatism. Or, more appropriately, for the purposes of analyzing politics in the media, we need to divide both Liberalism and Conservatism into respective classifications of simple and the complex.
Both Liberalism and Conservatism do come in fairly complex flavors. The world's problems aren't simple, and aren't- at least in terms of real-world policy and solutions- attacked with simple political philosophies. I would argue that the intricate complexities of Liberalism and Conservatism are truly what make America go 'round. But complexity doesn't sell newspapers.
The mass-market national debate has come between Simple Liberalism vs. Simple Conservatism. People like to think that that the answers to the world's problems are simple.
For the left-leaning: if we could make sure the poor aren't so poor, and the rich aren't so rich. If we could just get along regardless of race or sexual orientation. If America could just be a good citizen in the World community. And so on, and so forth.
For the right-leaning: if we could all just understand and hold good ol' American values. If we just had lower taxes. If we just kick some ass in the name of democracy. And so on, and so forth.
The specific characteristics of the two camps of mass political thought in America are important here. Content is what the media is in the business of delivering (in exchange for you watching their advertisements), and content is where bias begins. But not for the reasons most people argue.
Despite what the conspiracy theorists may say, the media only reports what people want to hear. The media wants eyeballs, plain and simple. Eyeballs sell advertising. However, the fact that the country is pretty much divided 50/50 between Simple Liberalism and Simple Conservatism does not lend to the media being biased in either direction.
Then why the rumors of a Liberal Media? Then why, when asked by a variety of non-partisan surveys, do 75% to 80% of the members of the media state that they vote Democrat? It comes down to content.
When discussing media bias, its important to separate fact-based media from opinion-based media. (With the advent of 24-hour cable news and talk radio, opinion-based media has seen such a expansion recent years, that its not uncommon for people to confuse opinion and fact when it comes to the news. More often that not it's because they don't want to differentiate between the two.) Nevertheless, let's focus on the standard, fact-based, everyday news. We all know Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken are biased. They're supposed to be, and they're not veiling their biases. The news itself, unfortunately, is another story.
