By way of Accuracy in Media, this study says that more Americans see bias in the media's presentation of news and that that bias skews to the left.
A 2004 study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press showed that 53% of Americans agreed with the statement, "I often don't trust what news organizations are saying," and 48% believe that the people who decide on news content are "out of touch," and those numbers are rising. In 1987, 62% of the public believed election coverage was free of partisan bias, down to 53% in 1996, 48% in 2000, and 38% by 2004.
The study itself is interesting. They tested eight outlets for perceived bias: Newsweek, the Rush Limbaugh radio program, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the Fox News Channel, CNN, 60 Minutes, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. And, not surprisingly, the results varied.
Among all eight media outlets, conservatives and liberals had opposing views on which outlets were biased against their views, with all eight results being statistically significant. It is important to note that liberals found some outlets biased while conservatives did not, and with the exceptions of CNN and Fox News, a majority of moderates had no opinion.
The results from this study suggests that conservatives do in fact perceive more bias than liberals, and conservatives and liberals perceive opposing news outlets to be biased against their views. The results also show that on the whole, liberals are generally happy with the media, which may explain why conservatives are more likely to perceive a media bias.
With liberals being happy with the media, and because conservatives perceive a general media bias, the study suggests that the media in fact are liberal. This study did not prove the existence of bias in the media, but it does suggest that a bias does exist because perception is reality. Liberals and conservatives did perceive bias, and that perception of bias leads to the reality of bias, which depending on the outlet can be either liberal or conservative.
Those findings don't surprise me at all. Judging from liberal sites I read, as well as watching and listening to various opinion shows, it's fairly clear that most liberals do not see a problem with the way the MSM portrays news, unless it is that they don't think it is liberal enough.
If you want a good look at what the far left thinks news should look like, just visit Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). They can't even bring themselves to call Hezbollah a terrorist group. But I guess if you think there's nothing wrong with Social Security and describing Hugo Chavez as a humanitarian is accurate, then you would think the New York Times is too far to the right.
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