Is the mainstream media fair or biased?

Typically, Fox is right, MSNBC is left, and CNN is supposed to be center, but they’re all lame.

Media is biased in whichever direction gets them the most viewers and money. Often, they air clips without having all the facts just so they can be the “first” to break the story. Or they make things out to be more dramatic than they actually are to keep you from switching the station to other news sites or buying a competitiors paper.
In order to get facts out of the news, you have to look for them yourself and read from various sources with differing points of view. Even polls and research that news companies conduct and claim they’re based on statistics usually aren’t. TV news, newspapers, blogs, news websites – most likely their primary interest is ratings and money.

This is a good read if you’re interested.

The BBC is about as unbiased as you can get. It isn’t funded by big business or advertisements but by the licence fee and it takes pains to be accurate and fair in its reporting. No person and no organisation can ever claim to be entirely unbiased, it is more an ideal that is continually striven for though many media organisations don’t even try.

I tend to agree with @Blackberry, though I think the kind of bias you see or emphasize depends on your own political beliefs.

For instance, back in my Dennis Kucinich-supporting I-could-make-Marx-look-right-wing days when I spent a lot of time on Democratic Underground and other liberal websites, the running theme seemed to be that all of the media was dominated by the right wing.

Likewise, when I spent a lot of time on right-leaning sites (both of the big-R Republican, as well as the libertarian sort) the theme was that all of the media was dominated by the left.

Personally, I think it’s damn near impossible to be completely objective about determining what type of bias dominates the media, because for every example of one type I’ve seen, I’ve seen a counterexample ad infinitum. That’s just me, though.

I also have a tendency to think that no matter what bias a media outlet has, almost all of them tend to lean towards the stupid or the lowest common denominator.

I tend to think it all comes out in the wash.

The consistent theme I see is that corporate media is, surprise surprise, heavily pro-corporate.

@incendiary_dan agreed.

@incendiary_dan has it.
For more, check out Chomsky and Herman’s propaganda model. Left/right is itself a distraction and a tool.

I should add that I think that corporate bias is probably the most dangerous. Some people tak about imperialist nation states waging war, but those wars are largely to facilitate corporate extraction of resources and/or new avenues of business.

The left and right in this country and in the whole industrialized world is merely two factions of a larger party arguing amongst themselves about how to control the world.

I think there are surprises on both sides of the equation and you really need to do your own homework to find out where their heart lies. The Chicago Tribune was an iron clad Bastion for the Republican party and made headlines of their own when the endorsed Obama for President. I wrote the editor and he made a clear, concise, reasoned case for why he broke rank. In hind sight he was wrong on all counts and subscriptions at the time were at a critical all time low and has not recovered since. Hard to really blame him for what he had to do at the time.

Politics is all about being popular and selling ad space. Do NOT be swayed by anyone professing to have all the answers! Make up your own mind and ignore the hype no matter how tempting.

@Blackberry You don’t like any media coverage? What do you think they should do that they are failing to do?

@Allie There are actually a number of news organizations today that routinely operate at a considerable loss because someone wants the message they push to be out there. One good example is The Washington TImes, owned and funded‘s_washington_times/ by the right-wing religious cult leader, The Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Likewise, our own right-wing rag, The Boston Herlad has been operating at a loss at least since Rupert Murdoch sold it to its former publisher and News Corp. executive, Patrick J. Purcell in 1994.

I’ll add your book recommendation to my reading list. T Hanks for the recommendation.

@flutherotherI do admire the BBC, but I doubt you could sell the idea here in the USA.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard There are objective measurements that can be applied. Over the long haul, which party’s presidential candidates did a paper endorse? What is the leaning of the nationally syndicated columnists they carry.

@marinelife You are probably right.

@incendiary_dan No question about that. The consolidation of media in the last 50 years has brought us to a point where virtually all the large circulation dailies are owned by a tiiny handful of huge multi-national corporations. The publisher and Editor in Cheif are almost always right-wing corporate cheer leaders. The reporters are often more left leaning. But the publisher decides who gets page headlines.

@tom_g Amen to that. Corporatocracy rules.

@Cruiser Excellent point. But there are some factors, such as nationwide trends in endorsements, that I’m not in position to test for myself.

@ETpro I watch a few minutes here and there, but I mainly use the web.

@Blackberry I see. You have to do some filtering (make that a LOT) to remove bias in Web coverage too. :-)

Everyone’s biased. The media has some checks on it, but it’s your own stupid fault if you believe everything you see on TV. A corporation exists for only one reason: profit. Every other factor will always take a backseat to profit. A news corporation sells news, but if they see opportunity for profit by pandering to an audience or underwriter, they will do so, as long as their potential for future profit isn’t hurt. They can’t just sell lies all the time, or they will lose their credibility, but if they water it down just enough, there’s profit to be made.

That’s kinda what corporations do. I’m surprised when this shocks people.

@Smashley You’re right there. It’s like Captain Renault in Casablanca: “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”