The Liberal Media: Fact or Fiction?

A week-long look at bias in mainstream American media

Part 1: Please, Consider The Following

by Tyrone L. Heppard

   

   The extent to which the news influences us every day is no secret. Not only that, but it turns out that contrary to popular belief, people develop preferences in news outlets; they don’t just blindly follow the loudest pundit on TV and base their morals and personal politics on what they hear people say.

   Studies have shown that in general, we all trust the network we chose to get our news from. In fact, according to statistics, anyone who is even mildly interested in news supports their news source much like a sports fan supports their favorite team. However, both liberals and conservatives believe that our media serves the interest of the elite.

   Who is this “elite”? If you ask a liberal, they’d probably say it’s Congress or whoever is working for the president (at least that was the case when Bush was in office); it might even be the multi-national corporations and the fat cats on Wall Street who have the media outlets in their back pockets. A conservative would definitely say that the media caters to the left; that a majority of the news is delivered by liberals and, therefore, most TV news outlets work to promote the agenda of liberal elites.

This guy's so ashamed of his corrupt country, he cant show his face

   They would even give it a name: liberal media bias. But what exactly is liberal media bias? Is there even evidence that backs up their claim that the Fourth Estate is run “for liberals, by liberals”? If that’s the case, then what is the liberal agenda? What have they been working so hard to push on or hide from the American people? Furthermore, if this is all accurate and can be proven, is it even working? Why or why not?

   There is plenty speculation coming from the conservative side of the table but not much evidence. For example, if someone were to ask Newt Gingrich or Herman Cain about why they received any negative press during their quests for the republican presidential nomination, they would blame (and have blamed) the “liberal” media.

   We all know that people like Rachel Maddow and Ed Shultz wear their political hearts on their sleeves, but the only “journalists” on TV who go out of their way to lean left are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and they label themselves as comedians. So in order to answer the question of whether there’s a liberal media bias, we need to ask two questions: what media and whose bias?

   In an attempt to disprove the liberal media bias argument, one would have to take an objective look at various sources and hear from both liberals and conservatives on the issue. First, we’ll look at the most indisputable evidence that there is so far: the poll numbers. Afterwards, experts on the subject of media bias explain why the traditional go-to argument for a conservative is the liberal media bias. Based on the examples given by our experts, we’ll look at some real-world examples from the 2012 election to show how the right attempted to present the media bias angle to the American people.

   With that being said; hey, wonky numbers people! Want to see some statistics?

Tomorrow: Part 2: We Got the Numbers!