The Write-in Responses

I think this question is a little unfair, since it's the less-partisan consumer who's being served worst. But if I had to choose, then the right has the better case. Literally every reporter I know is a liberal Democrat, with the exception of people who work at openly right-wing publications and a few scattered newspaper types. I don't think this is because the news biz only hires liberals, though—I think it's because liberals are much more inclined to feel conflicted about the world around them and to seek to understand it by questioning it. Young conservatives don't go to J-school; they go to B-school.

The job of the media is to hold power accountable. While the right's critique about bias sometimes does ring true, the left's critique is far more applicable and resonant—that the media exists to hold power accountable but is too often beholden to the same power or power structures.

Media left-wing bias is overblown, but it is real. Most journalists are young, have limited worldviews and tend toward groupthink.

It's difficult to find a reasonably written, non-inflammatory piece about conservative politics that doesn't mock its subject. BBW's recent cover story about Reince Priebus was very welcome.

Unfortunately it appears that mainstream media is often driven by the right wing of American thinking and often Republican because big business or corporate conglomerates own them. So naturally they voice the thinking and interests of the right.

The right just wants the media to agree with them and cares little about principles. The left—or the remaining sentient portion of it at least—correctly sees the media as a casualty of the economic new-media situation.

I'm talking about the far left, not liberals. If you have any sort of anti-capitalist leanings, or even skepticism of capitalism as the best form of economic system, you will not get a fair hearing in mainstream media. It took the impossible-to-ignore candidacy of Bernie Sanders to even put fairly moderate social-democratic policies on the table, and these were routinely framed as extreme or impossible in the pages of the major newspapers, blogs, and among the Twitterati on the right and left. The right may complain that the mainstream media skews liberal on social issues—and it does. But for the most part these issues—gun rights, gay rights, abortion, diversity, etc.—are at least presented as having two sides. Any discussion of business, economics, or inequality always rests on the idea that American capitalism is an unchangeable reality and anyone who might say otherwise is a dumb hippie.

It's not a vast conspiracy, but the mainstream media is controlled by mostly liberal, mostly white cosmopolitan elites, who have done a generally poor job reflecting the diversity of the country.

Depends on which "media" you're analyzing. The right makes some good points about liberal bias, the left makes good points about the Fox News faction.

(Caveat: I come from the left.) It seems to me that a decent majority of journalists on the left and in the center are trying to maintain impartiality and simply report the facts. I see this only rarely by journalists on the right, and truly only by those older and well-established journalists on the right.

The media has let so much right-wing malfeasance—the Iraq War, the mortgage crisis, the character assassination of Obama, the rise of Trump—off the hook.

I mean, neither has a good case! But the left is slightly more willing to acknowledge the importance of reality/facts/objectivity, even if it hurts them. None of that on the right.

Because the media is, on balance, more liberal than conservative.

Twitter and Facebook are liberal organizations and favor content from liberal media outlets.

The media (like academia) has a tendency to think every conservative is a crazy, Trumpian fool. Conservative ideas are often dismissed or portrayed as bonkers instead of another way of thinking. (And I'm not even conservative.)

Neither. The discourse has become so polarized that both sides are pandered to by either the HuffPosts or Breitbarts of world.

The right had a better case in the late-20th century; neither the right nor the left has a good case today, qua right or qua left.

Only slightly. Most of "biased media" arguments are a cannard, the result of successful spin by partisan interests. But when it comes to coverage of social issues and religious issues, there is some legitimate concern about many members of the media, despite their best efforts, failing to provide even-handed reporting.

The right blames absolutely every little thing on the media. It doesn't matter what it is.

Critiques of corporate ownership (from the left) are more on point than critiques of liberal bias (from the right). There is certainly a class bias and a racial bias, of course.

The media has basically missed the biggest story in the U.S .over the last 20 years, the nuttification of the GOP, and has treated insane ideas like normal ideas, out of fear of looking biased.

From what I can tell, a lot of media (that I see anyway) is so knee-jerk left that it's Icarus-ing and bound for a fall. Like the way that it's acceptable to use Donald Trump as a punch line for everything—EVERYTHING— wherever you go. Like I was at this science fair type thing, where college students were showing a glow-in-the-dark toilet experiment, and just as a bonus goofy detail they'd made the toilet-bowl basin glow in the design of Donald Trump, so it would look like you were going to the bathroom into his mouth, and people laughed, but this wasn't a political event, it was a science show, and if that had been Hillary Clinton, there would have been an outcry, etc. Anyway, lots of knee-jerk left, and a lot of automatic, disrespectful disregarding of the conservative point of view, which seems rude and narrow-minded, and headed somewhere.

Mainstream media sources (radio, TV, and print) are all biased against conservative ideas—simply analysis of headlines, verb usage, lack of coverage of certain stories, etc., makes this clear. It's much easier to get a liberal perspective from consuming mainstream media than a conservative one—those have to be sought out (except Fox News, which isn't great).

I don't think either really has a case, but there is an established, thriving, self-contained ecosystem for the far right worldview which often manages to cross over into mainstream media. The far left (as opposed to center left, which of course is more dominant) is far more marginalized.

Neither, really, as I get complaints from both (objectivity really is in the eye of the beholder), but I would imagine the right feels they're not as represented in the type of people who generally work in major media markets, whereas the left can't really make that argument.

The era of false equivalencies is very much upon us.

Neither. It's hard to trust anyone's view who is deeply on either extreme of this issue. It's not hard to see both sides, though. On the whole, extreme lefties are bigger assholes.

This has fallen somewhat out of fashion on the left, but the most salient critique with what's wrong with us is structural and economic, not ideological (which is a valid critique, but not the most salient); that at least is more associated with the left than the right.

Left-wing publications—like The Nationi> or Mother Jones—are fundamentally marginalized. Left-leaning publications—like the New York Times or New York—are fundamentally ill at ease with their own beliefs, and often hide them behind objectivity journalism or opinion columns. Right-wing pubs and sites (though often cheaper and more marginal in and of themselves) aim for broader impact and consequence and purity of purpose, and succeed.

Both "sides" get riled up about the "media" not representing their view. However, I choose the "left" in this case not because I agree with liberal criticisms of the media, but with radical-leftist ones. The media is too corporate and too colonial to be truly all that it could be as a service to society.

This is sort of a trick question, as I think the right has a better "case" since more negative things do seem to get published about them. Then again, they're the side that believes Donald Trump to be a legitimate candidate for president and his views on women and people of color to be, generally, fine.

This question is troubling because I think, fundamentally, the media is non-partisan. However, most journalists are personally liberal people living in major cities, and this worldview is inherent in most stories.

I don't love either of these choices. I think the right is pissed at the media for being biased, and the left is pissed at the media for being ineffectual in promoting its bias. The right's gripe is a lot less valid these days because mainstream institutions have lost their power and ideological/conservative outlets have proliferated. Meanwhile, the "Liberal Media" of yore — NYT, NPR, CBS News, etc.—are all diminished vs. 10-20-30 years ago.

The right, technically, but what many who deride the "liberal media" fail to understand is that media by definition is supposed to question the status quo. And as long as this is a center-right country, conservative ideology will continue to be behind much of the decisions that affect our daily lives. If somehow we became a socialist country, I'm confident that many in the media would shift the targets of their reporting accordingly. Generally speaking, the public needs to understand that while many journalists lean liberally, the best among us are simply contrarians who are always looking to affect those in power with accountability.

We often are biased against government spending and intervention, which plays to the opinions of the right

Right-wing claims of liberal media bias are utterly bogus. When objective reality is that greenhouse-gas emissions are causing the planet to warm, conservatives see liberal bias in straightforward reporting of that fact. Their constant whining has successfully bullied the mainstream into kowtowing to them, which in turn upsets the left, as it should. Moreover, the corporate and billionaire consolidation of control of media companies is skewing them rightward. Look, for example, at the WSJ editor's recent demand that the newsroom treat Trump "fairly" because "serious people" are supporting him. Fair treatment of Trump, of course, would mean holding him to the same standards as Hillary Clinton. That's not what he means at all, though; what he means is don't write too many stories that reflect poorly on Trump even if he deserves it.

I think cable news and mainstream media are very different. I don't see bias in mainstream media. The left gets clobbered on cable news.

I'm only choosing "the left" because I don't know how data in this poll will be presented. I can understand how conservative people are frustrated with media, but their frustration is mostly a farce because it's been manufactured and packaged for them by conservative media. I don't think the left has much of a case to make against the media, unless it's the existence of organizations that sensationalize and twist news to fit an agenda.

I think that's the wrong question. The right has an agenda that depends on lying, so they bash the media, which tries to get to the truth.

Clearly the press evolved from a more divided, partisan institution in the 18th century to an institution that gave voice to the voiceless, and the voiceless customarily fell into one more clearly defined side of the haves vs. have-nots. Comfort the afflicted, etc. So we got identified as carrying the water for the poor and unfortunate.

No such thing as either anymore; these constructions are part of the paradigm through which the media maintains our current toxic political stasis.