Bias in media a relative thing

Found at Lying Media Bastards:

FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) recently commissioned a study by German media analysis firm Media Tenor called “Power Sources,” which looks into the makeup of interview subjects on the three main US networks. From FAIR’s press release:

A study of ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News in the year 2001 shows that 92 percent of all U.S. sources interviewed were white, 85 percent were male and, where party affiliation was identifiable, 75 percent were Republican.

Interestingly, while the study betrays the myth of the media’s liberal bias, it doesn’t necessarily confirm a conservative bias, but rather that the three networks take their lead from whatever party is in power. From the study:

Instead of a liberal bias, the study found, source selection favored the elite interests that the corporate owners of these shows depend on for advertising revenue, regulatory support and access to information. Network news demonstrated a clear tendency to showcase the opinions of the most powerful political and economic actors, while giving limited access to those voices that would be most likely to challenge them.

On the partisan level, the news programs provided a generous platform for sources from the Republican Party– the party in power in the White House for almost the entire year– while giving much less access to the opposition Democrats, and virtually no time to third party or independent politicians. Based on the criterion of who got to speak, the broadcast networks functioned much more as venues for the claims and opinions of the powerful than as democratic forums for public discussion or education.