Disagree. IMO media has lots of biases, and they all affect political coverage:
- Laziness: Analysis is hard, transcription is easy. Got a divisive topic? Call up representatives from both sides and repeat what they said. Even if one or both sides are provably lying, don’t call them out on it. Let the audience decide. The audience you’re helping them misinform.
- Corporate: Most media organizations are also big businesses. Why run a story that would destroy a major sponsor or shareholder, when you could bury it and live to report another day?
- Story: Stories are more interesting than lack of a story. So if something happens that turns out to be inconsequential, should you drop it, or should you spice it up and run it anyway?
- Access: Stories depend on access to sources. If a government figure blackballs you, you lose all those lazy transcription stories. Will you defer them or stand your ground?
- Tabloid: Got a sex or sleaze angle? It doesn’t matter if the story has any consequence, or even harms public debate. Run it.
- Underdog/horse race: If you see an uneven competition, side with the loser, and try to make it a horse race by calling it neck-and-neck even when it’s not.
Some of these conflict with each other, but that’s how biases are. I’d say given these, and the types of stories the media’s been running for the past few decades, the major media tend to have a solidly conservative bias (disagree with Mrebo), one that often but not always aligns with the Democratic Party (agree with Mrebo). Media with more of a corporate (Wall Street Journal) or tabloid (Washington Times) lean will have an more pronounced conservative bias, and align more closely with the Republican Party.
But that was all before Trump. Now you’d have to go to something more like The Crusader to represent where Republican elected officials are today, and since the Democrats have also lurched right, they are probably now getting 50/50 favorable coverage from the WSJ.
American politics occupies a limited part of the full ideological spectrum, but I’m not convinced the Democratic Party is not liberal. I think the media is somewhat more liberal than the Democratic Party.
Laziness is a major problem in journalism, especially when emoting passes for deep thought and earns a big audience.
Maybe we should be blaming the audience/electorate. The Democrats would be a more liberal party if the electorate were more liberal. And journalism would be more balanced and thoughtful if the viewers cared about that kind of thing. It’s a lot easier to flip the TV on than to get involved in politics.