Hello everyone. I think Michael is going to make an official introductory post later, but I couldn’t wait to get started. My name is Michael (you all will be confusing the two of us now), and I am one of the new bloggers here at Poligazette! I am a student who is about to enter the professional television production field, so I thought it would be fitting as my first post to speak a little bit about the news media and political biases.

It seems that depending on where your own political biases lie on the spectrum, certain news networks are either non-partisan or biased liberally or conservatively. Someone may argue that a network is being fair to a candidate, or being biased in favor of a certain one.

This has been no more true than in the latest Presidential election season. Fox News has always been described by liberals as friendly toward conservatives (to say the least), while conservatives would call them fair. CNN and MSNBC, on the other hand, are often decried by conservatives as overly friendly toward liberals, while liberals cite them as the fair ones.

In one of my final Communication Theory classes, one of the things taught is that there is no inherent bias in the media, though they do tend to focus on the front-runner in elections. We’ve definitely seen that. I don’t know how many types I’ve chuckled about the pattern of, “Obama is finished! Hillary is going to win the nomination!,” “Hillary is done for! Obama is going to win the nomination!” every time the two would swap wins in this Spring’s primary season. Then for days afterword, most media coverage would be on who was leading at the time.

Yet, because college professors are rarely ever a-political in their lecturing style (and my Comm Theory professor certainly wasn’t), I have to take this with a grain of salt. I think the truth is more close to a mixture between focus on the front runner, with varying levels of bias that change per program and sometimes per network. Personally, I think it says a lot about your hiring patterns which way your network’s politics leans. If you’re packed with liberals, you’re going to be perceived as liberal. If you’re packed with conservatives, you’re going to be perceived as conservative.

Having written, shot, and edited news package for close to seven years now, I know how difficult it can be to keep bias of our your reporting. You have to choose the right words and editing style to tell the story that is sure to tell both sides, or else you’re labeled as biased. Luckily, I’ve been afforded independence in my news making so far.

Yet, professionals are accountable to the network bosses, and this is where some of the bias probably comes from. As networks and the corporations increasingly conglomerate, there are fewer places where we’re getting our news. Fresh with this overwhelming power, these people can direct their networks to tell news to their own specifications. They’ll bring in those people who most agree with their political views, and anybody who doesn’t toe the line might be demonized.

Yet, for all the reality of conglomeration, there are still some journalists who really do try to keep their bias out of their reporting. The late Tim Russert (who got the front-runner treatment from MSNBC for many days) is cited as one of those people. Surfing the blogosphere, I noted many commentators who would critize him as being a conservative lackey, and yet others who called him too liberal. I figure that if he’s getting so much criticism from both sides, he must doing something right.

It seems to me that as conglomeration continues, we will probably see the continued division of news bias. Unfortunately, with a new generation of journalists now graduating from universities around the country, this way be seen as the new way.

Still, I’m an optimist. I would hope that today’s journalism students can learn from the legends of old, and keep (or bring back) news for what it’s really for: informing the public.