Reddit mentions of Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media

It's sad that this is even needed. We were just talking about this last night. "Liberal media" was a phrase used only by utter whackjobs until about 1990 — or rather, everyone knew they were utter whackjobs.

The media, until the scrapping of the Fairness Doctrine, attempted objectivity but generally wound up a bit on the conservative side. This was an inevitable result of their being corporate entities. See the book Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media for more info.

The Fairness Doctrine was not an "equal time" rule but required broadcasters to not only air controversial issues, but to air both or all sides of a controversial issue, in order to better inform and serve the public.

Heh. We used to think we could demand broadcasters use public airwaves to serve the public.

The FCC also prohibited any one corporation from owning too many media properties, especially too many media properties in a market. For instance, one corporation was not allowed to own the newspaper, radio, and television station in a market. These rules and other anti-monopoly rules were discarded, which is why so few gigantic media conglomerates control so many of the media outlets today, especially news media.

Anyway, with the ending of these rules in the late 1980s/early 1990s, we saw both the monopolization of media at a corporate level and the funding by corporate interests of completely one-sided media programming, beginning with AM radio offering hate talk like Rush Limbaugh. Before the Fairness Doctrine (and arguably, anti-monopoly rules) were scrapped, there was no way Limbaugh could have been broadcast without any opposing voices to provide balance. Even as it was, his show was subsidized by Clear Channel for years before it made any money, because the corporate goal was to get the regressive right wing word out more than the need to make a few bucks in a not-very-profitable time slot.

And Limbaugh began the "liberal media" lie. Remember, the bigger the lie and more often you repeat it, the more it is believed. And Clear Channel made sure Limbaugh had enough outlets and neverending opportunity to repeat it — he had 3 hours every weekday with no opposition! And today it's common knowledge that the corporate, monopolistic, gigantic media conglomerates are "liberal" and "biased."

Horse puckey, of course.

So thanks to Reagan, we lost FCC rules that protected the public airwaves and allowed them to be used for purely corporate and political and biased reasons.

You might enjoy the book Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media.

It asks the same first question (as for the second, I believe the book was written pre-Fox News) and concludes that the media are most definitely not liberal in the main.