Does the mainstream media have a liberal or conservative bias?

[tik 🪀✨]

I'm often amused by the talk of the mainstream media biasing liberal or conservative. Those on the right insist it is liberal and those on the left the opposite.

Personally I think it is a false dichotomy and that it should hopefully be irrelevant to most of the people here who have the capacity to sort all of the information on their own. Of course there is bias, but 'liberal' and 'conservative' aren't the most accurate or important descriptors for such bias. Your thoughts?

Edit: The poll is for television news only (network and otherwise), but the question of the thread extends to print, radio, and other mediums.

[TheresNoMoney]

Most media outlets are slightly biased towards Republicans, and Fox News is obviously heavily biased towards Republicans.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

With the possible exception of FOX and the murdoch papers, the worldwide news media is fashionable and elitist but not really "liberal" or "conservative" at least in the US defintions of the term.

So yeah I agree when you say it is a false dichotomy. Here I should point out that this is a different perception here between ideology "liberals" or "conservative" and political parties "Democratic" or "Tory" for example; which often clouds people's views on the news media.

Though I laugh whenever anyone claims that the New York Times is uber-liberal.

[Wakie]

Most media outlets are bias is driven by economics.  Their #1 preference is for a big juicy scandal.  After that they will be biased towards whomever is in the White House because they can feed them headlines.  Their final bias is to their advertisers.  For many years news outlets shelved stories about the health risks of tobacco because the network didn't want to lose the ad revenue.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Most media outlets are bias is driven by economics.  Their #1 preference is for a big juicy scandal.  After that they will be biased towards whomever is in the White House because they can feed them headlines.  Their final bias is to their advertisers.  For many years news outlets shelved stories about the health risks of tobacco because the network didn't want to lose the ad revenue.

It's all about the ratings!

I think Fox is the perfect example of conservative culture in this country... what it really is in practice, not as an ideal.

You get the "conservative ideal" when you watch Fox News.. but reactionary trashy conservatism in practice on the Fox network... all the reality show bullsh**t and garbage about women shaking their boobs and asses around so the horny beer gut knee-jerk reactionary Bush voters can get their fill of T and A while their wives catch the soaps during the day.

It's the perfect dichotomy of trash and ideal.

Then there's CNN, which is kind of annoying.. mostly because of Wolf Blitzer.. Ugggh... I hate him.  I think I like Bill O'Reilly better than him.. because at least O'Reilly stands for SOMETHING... Blitzer is just so incredibly dull and dramatic at the same time.. he sucks the interesting out of news.

Then there is the BBC which likes to tie anything and everything that happens to global warming.  "A mini Global Warming disaster struck such and such city when the city Christmas tree split in half."

Or...

"This past summer, Britain endured a cool and rainy summer.. which was surely caused by global warming much like the hot summer of 2003."

Overall, though, I think the media has a slight conservative bias, with Fox News on the whacko nutjob side and the rest not nearly as extreme.

[MODU]

As the media outlets themselves have stated, they have a liberal-leaning view on the issues.  That doesn't mean that they are organizations themselves are liberal, or they are towing the Democratic line.

[Ebowed]

It depends on the issue.

On topics like abortion, gay rights, or immigration, the media will tend to lean to the left.

On topics like universal health care and tax rates, the media will tend to lean to the right.  (Don't believe me?  Check out the mainstream media's response to "SiCKO.")

[Filuwaúrdjan]

In the U.S? Establishment (and as such rather right-wing) liberal for the most part.

In the U.K the (national) private media is (with the exceptions of the liberal-to-social democratic Guardian, the centrist-to-fake left Independent and the working class populist (Labour Right would be the most accurate description o/c, but that doesn't translate well into U.S terminology) Daily Mirror) right-wing, but not really in a monolithic sense (examples; The Times, the Daily Torygraph, the Daily Mail and the Sun are all right wing, but are all politically quite different despite that). Local (private) media varies a great deal. The BBC is mostly Establishment liberal (though not as right-wing in this respect as the mainstream media in the U.S), but there's much more variety within it than is generally realised. The news on Channel Four is quite like the Guardian really.

[Хahar 🤔]

They're not necessarily liberal or conservative, they try to make everyone look bad, whether they're Democrats or Republicans. Other then Fox News...

[Ban my account ffs!]

My local newspaper, for example, is owned by a conservative outlet, Forum Communications... and the editorials from the Forum Comm. editorial staff always have a conservative lean...

But the local editorials are always quite unapologetically liberal.

[opebo]

It reflects the interests of its owners and their political allies.  So in the american sense that could be either 'liberal' or 'conservative', since those ideologies both favour those interests.  In practice however, even in the narrow american sense, they do favour 'conservative' groups such as the Republican Party.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It reflects the interests of its owners and their political allies.  So in the american sense that could be either 'liberal' or 'conservative', since those ideologies both favour those interests.  In practice however, even in the narrow american sense, they do favour 'conservative' groups such as the Republican Party.

Opebo is actually correct here.

[John Dibble]

I'd say slightly liberal in the US, but it's close enough to center that everyone gets slammed now and then. Sensationalism to get ratings is the real goal of the media at large anyways.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Liberal (R).

[dead0man]

I'd say slightly liberal in the US, but it's close enough to center that everyone gets slammed now and then. Sensationalism to get ratings is the real goal of the media at large anyways.

If we're just talking TV news (and we are), this is correct.  Overall, tends to fall to the left more often than not.  Print media is probably closer to center.  Radio falls hard right.  The internet is all over the place.

[Jake]

Most media outlets are slightly biased towards Republicans, and Fox News is obviously heavily biased towards Republicans.

Second part is obviously true. Anyone with a brain knows the first is not. The Media is biased towards sensationalism which means higher ratings and more papers/magazines sold. They also are biased towards corporations seeing how they are owned and run by them. That means they're also biased towards the wealthy and elite, who read the news, write the news, and decide what's put on the news.

None of that means a liberal or conservative bias.

Nor does any of that mean that CNN hasn't already decided it's Hillary or Bust in 2008 or that FNC isn't a pro-GOP mouthpiece.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

They are of course biased against anything that hurts CEOs of  large defense contractors.

[NDN]

Most media outlets are slightly biased towards Republicans, and Fox News is obviously heavily biased towards Republicans.

Second part is obviously true. Anyone with a brain knows the first is not. The Media is biased towards sensationalism which means higher ratings and more papers/magazines sold. They also are biased towards corporations seeing how they are owned and run by them. That means they're also biased towards the wealthy and elite, who read the news, write the news, and decide what's put on the news.

None of that means a liberal or conservative bias.

Nor does any of that mean that CNN hasn't already decided it's Hillary or Bust in 2008 or that FNC isn't a pro-GOP mouthpiece.

I think you're the first Republican I've heard admit that the Media isn't liberal.