I'm responding to Gims' comment, "There's no such thing as unbiased reporting" as well as the continuing comments that there's a liberal bias in the US media. To me, that's poppycock. If you think it's true, then you've never really met an _extremely liberal_ person!

While we all have our point of view - perspective - worldview, that isn't necessarily the same as "bias". Bias has become one of those buzzwords that people use but don't define or explore. Like "liberal". They become codes. And when we use words like that, we don't communicate as well as we might.

In conversations and discussions, is it possible to come to a consensus? Is it possible to combine our different points of view and opinions, and find answers to problems? I think it is. We've taken part in classroom discussions for years and we send our kids to schools to learn how to do this. We are, in fact, having discussions in these forums. If it were fruitless, I don't think we'd do it.

Media are supposed to provide outlets for such discussions. They don't live up to this standard and you could say that the situation is becoming quite dire. But painting all media with the same brush doesn't help matters. What does help is to hold media accountable, and not allow them to be sloppy.

People can learn to examine their biases. Journalists and researchers are trained to do this. In anthropology they call it "bracket your assumptions" which means to acknowledge that you have certain assumptions and that they might affect how you see something.

In the US all newspapers in the 1830s used to have a specific political party label. All news was written from the standpoint of that party. In Italy and France, such papers still exist. You can also find them in the US but it's not as simple as some would have you believe.

When advertising became the primary way for supporting the US media, political affiliations were eliminated. Advertisers wanted to be able to reach the widest possible audience, and publishers were happy to oblige. At the turn of the 20th century, up through, say, the 60s, this system was firmly in place. News stories privileged wealthy white audiences. They also supported the business point of view, above all.

Look at your newspapers or TV newscasts. There's a business section, with stockmarket reports. There's a sports section. There's what used to be the "women's" section with recipes and household tips. These sections reflect our values as a culture. There isn't a "labor" section. Most news media now are trying to attract young people and feature images of young people. There isn't a section for the indigent.

Look at who are presented as the "experts". Who do the reporters go to in order to get their information? It's not the head of a union, or of a consumer or citizens group (unless it's a local paper). Usually it's a public official or head of a company. This indicates that these media are not liberal. (A truly liberal perspective would take the point of view of the citizen, the worker, and report news from that point of view, not the point of view of the heads of parties, which are simply elite corporations.)

This is the real bias. Within this very narrow spectrum there are individual differences. But if you go from city to city, the differences aren't all that great. After 911, the differences were miniscule.

Media like "The Nation" and "Ms Magazine" don't accept commercial ads and only subsist because of circulation. Ms, in fact, made the decision to drop advertising because they were unable to print articles questioning make up and dieting when their advertisers were trying to sell makeup and diet products.

The word "liberal" to me means "progressive" as opposed to "conservative" which means "status quo." I don't think either major political party (Democrat or Republican) has a monopoly on either term, but both are bandied about as though everyone knows what they mean. We should either define these terms each time we use them, or find other words.

If the goal is to get at the truth, then it makes sense to take care to express what you mean.