Bias in the News

Yesterday the NYT announced that it was endorsing Barack Obama (Reuters article- you need to sign in at NYT read their article) and that should come as no surprise. Their bias this entire election, nay, for as long as I can remember, is palpable. They are slow to report anything anti-their agenda and quick to slander people who don’t follow their beliefs. CNN has been pretty good, at least for the election season, except for a few incidents- especially recently. MSNBC is by far the worst. With “reporters” like Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, how can you not taste their bias? I honestly believe Fox News has the least bias. But, since I myself am conservative and my view may be skewed, I will submit to you that they have a bias in the other direction. This leads me to a very, very serious question: what has happened to the news? When did they move from looking out for people and keeping them unbiasedly informed to pushing whatever agenda they have?

The question is (partially due to my age) that I don’t know; but it is a problem. Most people won’t like this, but this is why I like Bill O’Reilly- yes he is a pundit, and he gives an opinion- but he gives his reasons, checks his facts, and defends his stance. He will also have at least one other person of an opposing view to debate him on the issue. A solid example of this came during last night’s show, where he had two people debating an issue, and explained to the more conservative commentator the idea behind Obama’s plan. If you watch his show, you know this is true. But on the same token, I think Sean Hannity is blindly conservative just like I think Olbermann is blindly liberal. When you have people like that, they don’t report they give their opinion. Olbermann I think is worse because there is no one else there to keep him in check.

No matter what your political views are, you have to admit there is a bias- predominantly liberal- in the mainstream media. Blogs like HuffPo, DailyKos, and HotAir are a problem too, but it should be obvious they have a strong bias and the intelligent reader will take that into account. People should be able to assume when they turn on Fox News or MSNBC that they are getting the news and not stories that have been filters to push an agenda. They can’t.