The
corporate American media is not liberal. Just think of how quickly their news outlets began to beat the drum of war when it became clear
George W. Bush's eyes were set on invading
Iraq. The absence of rational debate about whether or not a war should take place, the lack of coverage of the
anti-war movement, and the media's reliance on journalists
embedded with the
US military shows where the
bias lay.
The people who own media outlets want their political views to be reflected in the coverage of those media outlets. It's no coincidence that
Fox News, which is owned by
Rupert Murdoch, a staunch
conservative, is conservative as well. If you own something, you can make it say what you want, and you can make it leave out what you want.
In this respect, the
liberal media in
America is a myth: although there exist individual reporters who are certainly
left wing, the ownership is conservative.
In another way, the liberal media is very much alive. It is a media that is not necessarily left wing, but that is free of corporate control.
You just have to look and listen a little harder for it.
Alternative news outlets, such as those run out of local
campus and
cooperative radio stations,
public access televison, and
independent newspapers, can offer an ideological counter to the coverage offered by corporate media outlets.
Pacifica radio,
NPR, radio shows such as
Democracy Now! and
Free Speech Radio News and the web-based
Independent Media Center all offer various "degrees" of independent coverage for newsies seeking different viewpoints.
I use two rules when I get news. I remember that
all media are biased, and I try to gather information from a variety of sources with varied ownership.