I have done a lot of research on Politifact and the selection bias is just awful. Anyway, on the media bias topic there has been a study done by a professor at UCLA that shows that liberal media bias does exist. There's no conspiracy in the media. There's no collusion with reporters. Most reporters in the old media are left wing so a left wing POV naturally gets pushed. Does the new media(Fox News and AM Radio) have a right wing bias? Yes, it does. It does because most of those involved are right of center. Is it a conspiracy to state the obvious that Fox News and AM radio are right oriented? Of course not. It is what it is.
I agree with most of that. I actually think that's pretty good and accurate way to describe what we have. You don't have to micromanage everything your people say if you just stack your ranks with people who agree with you to begin with (left or right). I also agree with something you said earlier about how much damage the Rather story on CBS did to send us towards the truth abyss in which we find ourselves now. That gave the far right to excuse they needed to say "we don't have to take anything the liberal media says about us (the Bush Cheney crowd and their supporters) because we caught them in a lie this time". Can everyone see where it's lead us since then?
I catch heck around here sometimes because I like Bill O'Reilly AND Bill Maher. I think if a person is going to watch or listen to one side they should also listen to the other. I used to love listening to Paul Harvey on the radio until he started talking politics, then he made me want to puke, Mike Huckabee has take his time slots on the radio around here and he has the same effect on me. It's OK to be liberal or conservative until you fall into that trap of having to make every single thing that happens in the world the fault of "that other side". Huckabee used to be a pretty cool conservative to listen to until someone told him he might get elected in 2016, now he's fallen back into that.
For whatever it's worth, here's my opinion on news media. BOTH "the liberal media" and the "right wing media" both suck, but they don't both suck because they just say things I don't agree with, they suck because they don't tell the whole truth, they cherry pick and spin a story around the bits and pieces of truth they find. When did we as a nation get to the point where we couldn't stand to hear anything we didn't already agree with? One test I've posted here before is that any right wing news outlet that didn't post at least 1 or 2 really scathing articles about Bush-Cheney isn't a reliable source and shouldn't be taken seriously as such, the same thing goes with left wing outlets who won't/haven't posted at least 1 or 2 really scathing articles about Obama-Biden. Pretty much everybody seems to agree with me, as long as it's only on one side of this argument.
To me THE truth is the most important thing, not whose truth it happens to be, THE truth belongs to noone. THE truth is nobody's beeotch. THE truth is God's truth and it is sacred.
I know I fall into the trap sometimes of blaming Fox/Faux News for everything or being all bad, and I am trying to do better in that area. Not all Fox people area bad, I've already admitted to liking O'Reilly. I can't stand Hannity, not sure about Megan Kelly yet, Greta was OK, not my favorite but OK. Shep Smith is OK, Fox and Friends makes Sean Hannity look like Edward R. Murrow, but maybe that's the real problem, we need more Edward R. Murrows in journalism, not more snake oil salesmen with pre-written agendas, left or right.
Anyway, that's my take on it.