When talking to lefties about media bias, their number one argument seems to be that "Yes, the reporters may be liberal, but the corporations. It's the corporations man." In essence, this is Chomsky's argument in Manufacturing Consent. Now, would any lefty--any at all--argue that Fox News had a left-wing bias?

Via M. H. King, I learn that the President of News Corp. (parent company of Fox News) is a Kerry supporter:

According to the Kerry for President campaign, News Corp. President and chief operating officer Peter Chernin has endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate.

On the one hand, you have conservatives who argue that anchorman (e.g., Dan Rather) inject their bias into the reporting process. On the other hand, you have liberals who argue that corporate executives inject a conservative bias into the reporting process (most notably by weeding out stories they don't like in the editing process).

In my mind, this is solid evidence that higher-ups have very little to do with the content of everyday news delivery. In fact, most editorial decisions are made at a low-level. If any bias is injected into the news, most likely it comes from the personal world-view of individual reporters.

Take that Chomsky!

Posted by: Rusty at 02:55 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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