Having an opinion about media bias

So, I think it's important for any democratic society to show strong support for freedom of the press. I'm not a big fan of the 'war' the White House has waged against FOX News, but that is potentially a blog for another time.


I wanted to discuss people's opinions about media bias. I have a lot of friends that would consider themselves die-hard conservatives and many friends who consider themselves staunch liberals. I consider myself to be a moderate who leans to the left. I really didn't give too much thought to my political leanings until college. My dad was a career foreign service officer and I think not outwardly aligning yourself with a particular political party came with a job. A lot of career military officers also subscribe to this thinking because you could be serving a president of a different political party every four years. Career government officials would hate to have their judgment and advice called into question based on people's perceptions of their political ideology. I found out that my parents both consider themselves Democrats, but didn't raise us as Democrats. I'd like to believe that I chose to identify with the Democratic Party only after understanding the basic framework of both of America's two dominant political parties.

I just love it how a lot of my conservative friends flat-out consider anyone who has a show on MSNBC or CNN to be a hard-core liberal. On the flip-side, I know plenty of people who consider anyone who has a show on FOX News to be a pretty hard-core conservative. Whereas most commentators on MSNBC may be left-leaning and most commentators on FOX News may be right-leaning, I wish more people would actually tune in to these shows (more than just once) to actually listen and make informed decisions. For example, Glenn Beck is not really a conservative. I think he readily identifies himself as a Libertarian. But, many people just assume he's a conservative because he's on FOX News. He certainly doesn't say too many nice things about President Obama or his administration, but he had plenty of criticism for former-President Bush and his administration. I watch bits and pieces of Glenn Beck almost every night. I usually switch between his show and Chris Matthews' show on MSNBC. I really can't stand Beck, but at least I watch him enough to make an informed opinion.

The same goes for news reporting on the internet. I don't outright consider anything written on http://www.foxnews.com/ to be right-leaning. I usually scan the headlines of the online news sites operated by the major players, and then compare-and-contrast the information presented regarding the same and/or similar news events. I think it's important not to rely on just one website or one cable news channel to make informed decisions about the bias that may or may not be present in news reporting/commentating.