Media Bias

 People claim that there is a media bias and that the media cannot be trusted, except perhaps their favorite media. Conservatives will tell you that the media has a liberal bias.

None of that is really very accurate. First look at the source of revenue and platform when evaluating media sources. Media used to be funded by the government (PBS, CSPAN) or advertising. Hover as cable companies got more powerful they became a major revenue source by paying carriage fees to certain stations.

Fox News is mainly right wing and gets some money from advertisers but most of its funding is from carriage fees. It is owned by the Murdochs who after President Nixon left office decided the GOP needed its own media outlet to spread propaganda. Rupert Murdoch was a billionaire who enjoyed GOP tax cuts and wanted to keep them coming.

MSNBC and CNN are accused of being Liberal Media by conservatives, this is not actually true. MSNBC is a democratic propaganda tool to  match FOX and CNN is a bit more balanced - or at least less obviously a Democratic Party platform but still leans toward them. This is less a situation of being funded by Dems and more an effort to carve out their own lane. FOX News is the biggest cable media provider and the others need to do something different to try to compete for viewers.

However, MSNBC and CNN are what we call corporate democrat, not liberal democrat. Want proof? Think about who they have on and especially the attention they give to Presidential candidates. The most left wing candidates are ignored as much as possible and when they are on they are questioned harshly by the hosts. But the establishment candidates are mostly given praise and softball questions. Senator Sanders was largely ignored in the 2016 and 2020 races even though he was winning many early primaries. I recall once night CNN went on and on about Buddiget for coming in 5th and talked about every other candidate except Sanders who actually won that states primary. This kind of thing happened repeatedly.

CSPAN is the most unbiased source of media as it is publicly funded and lets you hear unedited speeches. We should try to watch or listen to more than one source and check out data for ourselves. We all know most media and most politicians lie, so why trust them? research adn check them out for yourself, most tings are in the public domain. And if it sounds click baity? its probably not full honesty.

When evaluating a news channel listen carefully to what they say and do not say. Odds are good you can see the bias and once you identify it you will have a better idea when they might be lying to you. Also see if they ever admit their mistakes. If someone tells you they are never wrong or never make an a mistake, or simply just refuse to own thier mistakes and make excuses odds are good you cannot trust them.