Do you believe there is a bias in the U.S. media?

Of course there is bias in the media, and it's not hard to prove, remember Trayvon Martin? How about Christopher Cervini? Here's the bare bones of both cases, a man shot and unarmed teen, in both cases 911 had been called to report suspicious activity, in both cases the shooter confronted the suspect before the police arrived, in both cases the shooter said the felt threatened and fired in self-defense. There were some differences, in the Trayvon Martin case the shooter was "white" in the with the Christopher Cervini the shooter was black. Also in the Christopher Cervini case there were two other teens that scattered away from the shooter.

Now how much press did Christopher Cervini get? Not much, you may have heard about it on Facebook or other social media, but the press hardly mentioned. the case. With Trayvon Martin we heard and are still hearing about the case months after it happened. The press wanted the play the race card, Trayvon fit while Christopher didn't simple.

Trust me all media is bias, the fictions of the unbiased reporting is and always has been fiction, we don't and have never got who, what, when, where, why, we get news filter and twisted to show the point of view of whoever is reporting on it.

There needs to be a fourth option for voting. Some media is spun to the left, some to the right. Very little mainstream media offers raw data, facts, or truly neutral analysis. All of the largest media congolmerates broadcast information that contains some amount of memetic tinkering. The media in the U.S. is biased because it is intended to uphold an over-arching corporate agenda that can easily use conservative or liberal ideologies to sow discord and confusion within the population at large.

Of course there is, and it's *all* media, not just the US.

The US, more than some other countries, however, has shrugged off any kind of journalistic integrity. Where once the press was the Fourth Estate, used to comment and question the policies of the state on behalf of the people, this is long gone in the US. Instead, the commodification of the media has consolidated editorial power in a very small handful of people, and their political and ideological perspectives overrule the integrity that is, or at least should be, the media. There's no expectation that news is even required to be *factual* anymore; any "news" that isn't based in fact is propaganda, pure and simple.

So yes, there is bias, across the board, and no, this doesn't mean it's generally presented fairly. You need another option in your poll.

Overall it is slanted towards liberal. And by liberal I mean, the mainstream media tends to publicize and praise opinions which favor the growth and expansion of state power over ones which favor the reducing and contraction of state power.

Just because you're a news station which favors Republicans over Democrats does not necessarily make you any more conservative. It just makes you liberal in some areas that Democrats aren't (control over substance injestion, pregnancy, more military spending, etc.) and more conservative in others.

The whole Republican = conservative and Democrat = liberal is a completely misleading idea. Both sides are liberal when it comes to central control over the currency, the use of military force overseas, the growth of government spending, etc etc.

It's biased toward ratings. They will happily dedicate time to divisive but frivolous scandals instead of the uncomfortable consequences of a decision a politician made last year.

Is there bias in the media? Did you just inhale and exhale? Have you swallowed any saliva today? Of COURSE it's biased. We're human beings, and by nature we're not completely objective. However, it doesn't seem like any news source is even striving for objectivity any more. They all seem to want to oversimplify issues into an either/or scenario. How dare anyone have a nuanced view on abortion or welfare or foreign relations?

There's also, as others have pointed out, a bias toward ratings. People will tune in to see a house fire, a car accident or a plane crash, because those stories are exciting, whereas nobody wants to watch that snooze fest of a city council meeting where people are making laws that could affect you personally for decades to come. That's boring!

If we read the long and thoughtful articles in major newspapers and magazines, maybe we would see how complex some issues are and maybe television networks would present more complex stories to win their audience back, and maybe delve into the possibility that there is more than one (or two) ways to look at a given issue. In some ways, we get the news media we deserve.

Different media outlets are bias towards different sides of the liberal conservative spectrum. Fox is hardcore bias towards the right wing and ABC is really bias towards the left wing. The overall media is not balanced, most media outlets don't give solid news and are often trying to proclaim the "evil" agenda of the other side.

There needs to be a fourth option:

Yes, but usually no more than what can be culturally expected.

I can think of only two main stream news sources that are politically biased, and that is FOX News and MSNBC. For better or for worse, the rest are culturally biased.

I wish there was an option for: "It's biased in every direction, across the board and to the extremes." There's too much a partisan divide, which leads to a lot of biased media that says dumb things just to insult or look better than its opposition than give good facts. The sad fact is that as of right now a comedy show made to mock the media (Dailyshow with John Stewart and The Colbert Report) offer the fairest viewpoints of current news under the sun.

the media is biased. Biased toward the ignorant masses who lap up this non stop "you are in grave danger" stories.

Yes, but this question is fundamentally badly asked.

The media probably leans more conservative these days, but in fact the "liberal" media are a crucial part of the system of control.

The media is biased toward corporate needs and the needs of the rich. There are numerous obvious structural factors that cause that, as well as cultural factors: The fact that reporting on the rich and powerful can be costly and obnoxious while reporting on the poor is very easy; the fact that the rich and powerful create a culture that lionizes their behavior and values; the need to court advertisers and affluent viewers; the fact that people in the media are themselves often relatively affluent professionals; etc.

The media in the U.S. is a propaganda service for U.S. elites, by and large.

Surely yes. Because the bias in the US media ( and only in USA ) was, is and will be. We can see the same situation with many media in 80% of our world's countries.