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The United States traditionally has enjoyed a wide variety of opinions in its various regional daily newspapers, and some studies in the past have shown very li

The United States traditionally has enjoyed a wide variety of opinions in its various regional daily newspapers, and some studies in the past have shown very little bias overall (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2000.tb02866.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2000....). Obviously there was individual bias, but not in the meta. Maybe something has happened of late (would love to see data, aside from cable news which I think has obtained strong bias of late). But personally, I believe that if there is a problem, it is more the consolidation of media outlets into very large corporations. This is a lack of diversity problem, not a bias problem. If "mainstream media" is defined by Big Corporations, you have to include Fox News (News Corporation) and AM talk radio (largely Clear Channel) with the liberal side of MSNBC (Comcast), Time Warner (CNN), Disney (ABC), and CBS. I can easily buy that the fact we have much fewer voices than we used to driving the narrative might lead more to monolithic opinions and groupthink. Incidentally, I personally find the charges you are making about media actively helping campaigns a bit weird as well, given Steve Bannon's role in the Trump campaign.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
I never considered Breitbart as part of mainstream media, so I ignored that. CNN is in a completely different position than Breitbart. "Mainstream" used to be NBC, CBS, and ABC, plus AP and UPI. Of those, UPI's gone; NBC, CBS, and ABC have more-or-less abandoned their role. Fox and CNN are new-ish (at least to a person of my age). So to claim that "the mainstream media" all abandoned the center means "almost all the original ones did" - not counting Fox (or even CNN) in the reckoning. Never the less, CNN and Fox are far more mainstream than Breitbart, which is a marginal fringe player.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago

I never considered Breitbart as part of mainstream media, so I ignored that. CNN is in a completely different position than Breitbart. "Mainstream" used to be NBC, CBS, and ABC, plus AP and UPI. Of those, UPI's gone; NBC, CBS, and ABC have more-or-less abandoned their role. Fox and CNN are new-ish (at least to a person of my age). So to claim that "the mainstream media" all abandoned the center means "almost all the original ones did" - not counting Fox (or even CNN) in the reckoning. Never the less, CNN and Fox are far more mainstream than Breitbart, which is a marginal fringe player.