The mainstream media has a liberal bias

With regards to your example from David Deming's testimony, there is no question that NPR has some noticeable leftist leanings, as do many news sources. You can find many examples of left wing bias if you look at certain sources. However, I have a problem with you dismissing right-wing programs off as opinion programs and thus not relevant to this debate. I have defined the mainstream media to be "the news sources from which the majority of Americans get their news, including printed sources, Cable/TV News, Radio, and the Internet". A news source does not necessarily mean a self-proclaimed impartial reporting program, it is an outlet that addresses news stories and from which people extract information. I would accept the Daily Show with John Stewart as a news source in that it occasionally reports news-related information to its viewers, in addition to the opinions it presents. Even South Park, in the rare case where information about news, in contrast to quick and abstract references to politics in jokes, temporarily acts as a source of news. The O'Reilly Factor, which is a talk show, is also described as "the most-watched cable NEWS show in the USA" (capitalization mine). The Fox News Channel, which has both commentary news programs as well as programs that conform to your definition of "news source", is the most watched cable news channel in America. The Rush Limbaugh Show is also the radio program with the most listeners in America. A substantial portion of Americans get not only their opinions but also information from these sources. Perhaps in an ideal world, it would be otherwise, but in America now, we cannot expect our news sources to be unbiased. It is just that these biases run in a plethora of varieties, from the outbursts of Bill O'Reilly to the angry speeches of Keith Olbermann. One more point about news sources: While you reject many "opinionated" sources such as The O'Reilly Factor and The Rush Limbaugh Show, you claim that there was a multitude of attacks on Sarah Palin in the media. In fact, the vast majority of these attacks come from sources you would reject as opinionated and thus not "news sources", such as blogs and Saturday Night Live. You also make some claims that indicate selectivity on the part of your examination of media bias. For instance, you keep pointing to Jimmy Carter's portrayal in the media as wonderfully spiritual, yet fail to mention Ronald Reagan's positive coverage, who was also referred to as greatly spiritual. Also, as I demonstrated before, Bush received much more positive media coverage during the 2000 election. He was portrayed as someone who had found God and changed his life, as well as being sympathetic to the wishes of the populace, while Gore was portrayed as an out-of-touch elitist. This was not confined to fox news, as some of my examples are, but was a widespread phenomenon. You cite coverage of the tea parties as an example of liberal bias in the media, but, again, it goes both ways. Fox news practically sponsored these events, over-exaggerating their occurrence and portraying them in a positive light (http://mediamatters.org...). "John Edwards received favorable press coverage until his scandalous affair came to light". Not only was Edwards, who displayed many anti-business sympathies, generally ignored during the debates despite his initial popularity in the poles, but when Edwards seemed to be beating Clinton after the Iowa primaries, the media pounced on his expensive haircut, seeking to render him as out of touch with the common people (http://www.paulloeb.org...). "I pointed out that journalists are overwhelming liberal in their personal views, that the UCLA study proves that media management does not temper that bias, and that liberals believe that diversity is critical to avoiding bias in every area of endeavor except journalism. Con did not rebut." As you might have read in my last post, I was running out of characters and was planning on rebutting some of your more pressing points later. The claim that journalists are overwhelmingly liberal is deeply flawed. "Conservative media watchdogs like the Media Research Center ( http://www.mediaresearch.org... ) place much emphasis on collecting survey evidence about the political views of the media. The definition of ‘liberal' being contentious and in itself highly politicised in the U.S., such collections of journalists' views appear selective and often seem to focus deliberately on issues like abortion and affirmative action" (http://www.allacademic.com...). Journalists are indeed quite liberal with regards to social issues because they live mostly in cites and thus, as Al Franken humorously puts it: "realize they know a gay person or two, and are, therefore, less frightened of them". In the same way, they are actually more economically conservative than the average voter simply because they reside in a higher income realm than the average voter. But journalists don't decide what gets reported, they only write the stories. The management reserves the right to pull stories off and edit them, especially when they clash with a business interest (one famous example: http://www.primitivism.com...). If the mainstream media has any large-scale, widespread bias, it is one towards making a profit. This is because the media is owned by large corporations that will not present stories against their interests because it would annoy the stockholders. That is why they want to pick winners in elections, and so on. The outlets that you refer to as elements of the real mainstream media, namely, NBC, ABC, and so on, display some liberal tendencies, such as leaning to the left on social issues and issues like global warming. But the powerful and popular right-wing media, which I have argued to be part of the mainstream media through my definition, have a strong bias towards conservative issues that, if it does not overpower the liberal leanings of the other outlets, at least cancels them out. The resolution is negated.