When the founding father’s presented the constitution with amendments; they placed freedom of speech and freedom of press as the first amendment. They rated this amendment without infringement, as the most important to prevent tyranny by the government. If the government is allowed to silence critical opposition to its policies and practices, there is no democracy and instead you have a dictatorship.
Recent events have led the President of the United States to state he is going to use government power to curtail that opposition. That statement is a chilling reminder of just how fragile freedom is.
Media bias, whether it be positive or negative toward political action keeps the citizenry informed. It is their choice how they wish to view the political event and to support or deny that position.
Media whether print, radio, or video is privately held and must make a profit in order to survive. Therefore the product that this media provides must be entertaining, interesting, and supported by facts. America is considered a right of center country. That means conservative media outlets have a larger audience than their liberal opposition, thus giving them a greater chance for advertising.
Media bias will naturally distort the opposition’s position. What is expected of the media is to be able to support the positions it takes. Investigative reporting which both diagrams and explains how the oppositions functions and who supports it, is critical to understating where opposition media comes from. The disclosure of this type of information allows the citizenry to discredit a media source.
Knowledge of media ownership in years past, such as newspapers, was readily available. With today’s information sources of internet, blogs, etc. it is much more difficult to determine the ownership. As an example, a single entity that has to go through more than one corporation to determine ownership could be viewed as having something to hide, such as the Tides Foundation. When this happens what appears to be legitimate reporting and is shown as an independent second source in reality is the original source being shown under a different name.
The use of this technique is not new. With the vast amount of money available, select individuals without disclosing who they are, can fund two, three, or more media outlets that appear to independent, yet are all controlled by the same individual, therefore what seems to be a independent, is not really independent at all.