It is rare these days to happen upon the comments section of a news post, particularly one related in any way to politics, where you do not see a news organization being called out for favoring a particular political point of view.
They are almost invariably right. And as long as modern news channels are revenue driven, regardless of medium, this sort of thing is to be expected.
In order to better illustrate my point, I am going to have to go back in time a bit to the mid 1970s. Some of you can take the ride with me, some will have to just take my word for it (or perhaps refute me with research).
This may come as a shock to some, but for a very long time all you needed to watch television was a television. What there was of any semblance of cable television was quite expensive and not by any means universally available.
There was no cost aside from the television itself. No monthly fees. Nothing. Everything was broadcast to your set for free. The for-profit broadcast companies stayed in business by selling advertising time, and the more viewers they had, the more money they could demand for said time. Some others supported their cost of operations with public funds and/or private donations.
Because the signals were broadcast over the air, whatever it was you were watching was relatively local in origin, with networked stations showing a mix of local and network productions. The three big networks then were ABC, CBS, and NBC, and each reserved a few hour-long blocks of time each day dedicated to reporting the news. For the most part, as is today, the news was a locally produced program.
The news itself didn't make the networks any money. It was a public service, for the most part. Every network had the same sources for news, be it a local event or something that came off the wire (think Reuters). The competition for viewers was not over the content of the news, it was over the network programs. The networks figured if you were already watching their station when the news came on, and you wanted to see the news, you'd stay put. And they were right to think that way.
In that sense, the news was rather generic. This was a good thing.
In the 1980's, cable television started to gain a real foothold as it expanded its area of availability. Offering a much wider array of channels, all of which came in crystal clear without the need for adjusting a set of antennae. I could be mistaken, but I believe the first cable news network of note was CNN. For *YEARS* it sat on the cable dial, nearly ignored. Who would bother watching 24 hours of news when the local coverage, which is still available through the broadcast networks, is also carried on cable?
Nobody really did... Until the first Gulf War, anyway. This was a HUGE news event, and CNN was in the perfect position to bring around-the-clock coverage. They had reporters in Iraq, who's broadcast occurred through no shortage of luck and amazing perseverance. The movie, "Live From Baghdad" presents an interesting vision of what happened. For the first time, a 24 hour news station found the ultimate 24 hour news story, and the broadcast made history.
It wasn't long after that before other channels dedicated solely to reporting the news popped up, and they invariably found themselves presented with an interesting problem.... How to attract viewers when all your selling is the news....
This is a problem now faced by any content provider, on any medium, that professes to relay the news as its sole function.
Not surprisingly, most of these sites/stations take the approach of trying to appeal to a narrow demographic in order to build a loyal following. This influences every facet of how they present their programming.
The unfortunate fact of the matter is that the only way you are going to get unbiased news is if the news itself is not the predominant source of revenue for the broadcaster. Stick to local channels if you can, and you at least have a chance.
In all fairness, even local news does its best to attract viewers. The difference is that the stations have a fair bit more to work with than just the news, and they have no need to use politics as a factor in their production related decisions.
