Media plays a big part around the world nowadays. About 11 years ago we would not think media would be such a big deal as we think of it now. The world uses media to post things that are happening in the world or we post to show our friends what we are doing on the weekends. I think when the question is asked is the media leaned more towards conservative or liberal? It really just depends on how a person views the media. Just like myself. I view the media on how I want to view it not on how I might think if it is liberal or conservative. I also don’t think you can really name a specific media to be “liberal or conservative”. As an example, if I am scrolling through Instagram and I see a beautiful skinny model my reaction would be “I wish that was me!”.
You then begin to put things in your head and make things bigger than it seems and view it on how it should be viewed. You start to lead your own thoughts and beliefs. People usually tend to watch their own beliefs if they are liberal then they will only watch media that are more towards liberal news, and if they are conservative, they then just watch media that is conservative. If they are like me, they watch anything that might just have both. In other words, I do believe humans make the media a big deal when in reality it is not. The media should not separate one another or make a person less of who they are because of what they want to be. Sometimes people will hate or bash one another because they believe in the same things. Media was not created for that reason. It was created to show new ideas, news, and entertainment.
Now onto the actual facts about media. Many Americans believe the media is liberal. I would see why when you scroll through any media really you don’t see traditional American values. The article “The liberal Media: It’s No Myth”, speaks about media spokesman denying that media is liberal. The article also says Groseclose and Milyo began rating voting records from U.S. Senators and representatives by Americans for Democratic (ADA) a group well known as liberals. These researchers used data from the 1990s and adjusted the ADA scores to compare them over time. On a 0-10 scale with 100 most of them being liberal the median member of the U.S house had an ADA score of 39. A list of computed ADA ratings for media outlets. On conservative, Fox News Special Report came out with a rating of 27. That was 12 points more conservative than the 39 of the median members of the House. On the liberal end, Newsweek had a rating of 72 which is 33 points more liberal than the House median. Also, other highly considered liberals would be The New York Times, the CBS Evening News, USA Today, and NBC Nightly News. (Barro 2004).
Media bias is an issue to Americans because it miss leads citizens and also causing hatred. The YouTube video, I watched “American News Media—Liberal or Conservative Bias?”, is a great debate video on media whether media is bias or not. Ronald Rice Co-Director, Center for Film Television and New Media began to explain in 00:01:20-00:01:45, media that were considered bias. 27% believe local tv is biased, 35% believe the network is biased, and 52% believe Fox news is bias.
Seems to me people who are professional journalism are writers who only reflect their opinions and not write about facts. I can see it happening there will be mistakes sometimes in the news about immigrants. If you look through the media and see certain articles on immigrants, you will see a lot of false spread rumors. Maybe then a conservative reporter is writing this article? One factor is getting news from a source does not always mean trusting that source. Data reveals that while 24% of Republicans got news from CNN in the past week, roughly four-in-ten who did (39%) say they distrust the outlet. And of the 23% of Democrats who got political news from Fox News in the past week, nearly three-in-ten (27%) distrust it. (Mark Jurkowitz, 2020)
There are many websites and new channels that choose one direction so than the other, but the most marketable media source favors the democratic party. They tend to attack other political parties and have lack information on the opposing views of their stories, which is described as counter-bias. To not be considered bias you have to show both sides of the party and display diversity within the content you are sharing about.
However, media bias has been known to go back and for decades, especially between two political parties. An example of mainstream media bias from the liberal standpoint is the presidential election in the year 2008 where “Media outlets were criticized for helping Barack Obama win the White House while portraying the John McCain and Sarah Palin in a poor light. The Katie Couric interview that skewered Palin is one example that conservatives point to that gives evidence to their claims.” McCain was extremely disappointed, feeling as if his campaign had been extinguished due to comments and reports made by television anchors and news journalists that sided with Barrack Obama and his campaign.
This example of democratic media bias could have a negative effect on the public’s opinion. Any type of media bias reflects negatively upon the citizen's public opinion. Media bias can sway people because of the angle they display their reports on. They present them with the information they want to hear and see by overlooking the issues which miss leads many citizens.
The media reporting these stories in the light they want to show them in could cause the publics' personal opinion to gradually fade away. With the persuasion, they present while covering news stories, they will begin to believe everything they hear and see as opposed to developing their own opinion about an issue or political matter. The defamation of McCain and praising of Obama lead to the people leaning toward the democratic party in the 2008 election.
Many reporters will lie and not give equal sides to the media. This is an issue I believe has to resolve.
In conclusion, through all of the research and obvious depictions from media, it is easy to see the weight that is put on expressing liberal views. A poll that was recently taken for media journalists found that “Of the 462 people surveyed, 17.63% called themselves “very liberal,” while 40.84% described themselves as “liberal. When you add it up, 58.47% admit to being left of center. Along with that, another 37.12% claim to be moderate. In fact, a mere 0.46% of financial journalists called themselves “very conservative,” while just 3.94% said they were “somewhat conservative.” That’s an unarguable 4.4% of the total percentage that leans right-of-center. That’s a ratio of 13 “liberals” for everyone “conservative.” This poll plainly exhibits that the mainstream media outlets of today are exceedingly biased to the liberal political views. As a result of this, there is no variation between political views, and they convey no exposure to all sides of the political spectrum.