Media Bias

The other evening, while at Walgreens, I spotted this headline. I couldn't help but think that this is a headline that could be in many cities across the country, especially close to home. So why isn't it? Corruption comes in many forms. It doesn't have to be just the guy who is involved in pay-to-play.

Decades ago, towns used to have two newspapers with each having its own bias. At least you got to read both sides of the argument. Here in Palm Beach County, the PBPost had a morning and an evening edition of its paper. Today and for the most part, the media is liberal and supports the socialistic agenda of Barack Obama. Locally, the news editor has always supported the developer side's argument over us "poor slobs" lumping us all into what he believes as one anarchist group if you have any contrary thought or opinion. In fact, he goes so far to ridicule when he suggests that Commissioner McVoy prove his statements--in his opinion, McVoy's memory is not good enough and discounts the entire Tri-Meeting held in January 2012 because of no audio and insufficient Minutes, even though it was the Mayor who referenced the Tri-Meeting during a workshop on the LDR's this week saying at one discussion point that "they had a consensus."

Gallup Polls show that most Americans do not have confidence in the media "to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly," according to Wikipedia. In 2011 a 60% majority reported a perception of media bias, with 47% saying mass media was too liberal, 13% too conservative. Prevalence of the perception of bias was highest among partisans, with 78% of conservatives reporting a perception of bias, 53% of liberals reporting a perception of bias and 46% of moderates reporting a perception of bias. Those who view mass media reporting as "just about right" was polled at 36%, in the historic range of Gallup polling. According to Gallup, in every year since 2002 more Americans think the media show liberal bias than think the media show conservative bias.

The confidence level that we have of the media in general is compounded when you include local editors and their one-sided opinions. The press is slanted and predicated today on greed with the power in the hands of too few people.

Maybe, just maybe, we should have media that will report both sides of the issue without slanting the news. Perhaps then, readership will increase and the confidence level in the press will rise once again.