Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't John McCain win the last Republican Presidential Primary, not Romney? Ron Paul was out there somewhere in the weeds, despite his strong showing in these types of straw polls. Meg Whitman spent more money on media and advertising than any California Gubernatorial candidate in history and still lost by a healthy margin, to a guy nick-named "Moonbeam" no less. I'm thinking you are giving the media way too much credit. Have you ever stopped to consider that Mr. Paul's take on certain [foreign]policy issues might have something to do with why he never comes close in the primaries?
The Fox News organization apparently does augment the Public Trust they are bound to uphold as a licensed news organization by manipulating events to deceive their viewership. They have never seemed an honest organization, based on truth as exemplified by their relationship with Sara Palin etc. who manipulate the truth daily as being necessary to promote their protracted beliefs. Not at all surprised the reactionaries consider this business as usual.
Not that I'm siding with Fox, I can understand where you're comin from. They're simply catering to their market, and in particular, to their readers. I think all news organisations have reporters with bias one way or another but also you must consider how many stories they put out before considering the reasons why or how it could possibly be biased. One of my sites does news and it's the hardest thing to keep updated. It opens your eyes to how hard news organisations have it, trying to come up with decent news stories or something interesting to space out the ads, every single day. When your organisation puts out a thousand new stories a day, all employees need to go looking for stories. What do you do with a thousand employees on a slow news day when you still need to put out a newspaper? You still send them out to do a story though it may not be as interesting as it could be. With a great sales team, the editor probably already has a million dollars worth of advertising ready-to-go every day and now has to come up with something interesting so people will buy the paper or watch the news report. Employees go looking for anything that makes a story and believe it or not, will make a story out of nothing, if only to fill up the space so they can put out their paper or daily news report. If you remember that all news is provided by organisations who MUST fill their quotas it may help you understand why so much shit is placed in between the lines and why so many 'nothing' stories are out there. It's not really out there to confuse reality, it's only there to fill the space between the ads. As opposed to bias, I think most news organisations make up their news to suit their readers. It's about how many pages they need to fill, how much controversy they can get away with and how much adspace there is to fill. Some news is controversial, though not that often, it's usually just often enough to promote the paper/organisation itself, which is meant to remind you that you need them and to keep you buying their paper. Most papers are lucky to come up with a real scoop once a year but that is enough for us all to have heard of them and it helps them attract more advertisers. A newspaper doesn't care how many people actually read a story, though the more that read it the more publicity they get. As long as it looks like it is busy & informative and it contains information potential advertisers may like, then advertisers will want to take part in the next edition. The illusion it is widely circulated and well-read is just that, an illusion created to attract more advertisers. The main purpose of any news story is simply to fill space between ads, the actual story itself is irrelevant. Just because they print a million copies of a newspaper, that does not mean a million people read it, the question is how many of the million are returned unread and you may be surprised at the answer, less and less every day as more and more of us get news online. You must also consider where a story started and remember that news corporations get stories from other papers too. A story in the New York Times will often be re-reported slightly different in the Daily Mail. No matter how true it is, the fact that it was reported elsewhere gives a reporter the legal right to now report it as fact, even if it is false. As they're reporting on a now known story, they can avoid the controversy it may create as only the first news organisation will get into trouble if it was wrong and being such a hot story, it helps them promote their paper. How do they decide what is news? As a major organisation why would I take the risk of court action by reporting Bush's war crimes or other serious issues when they're likely to take me to court over the story and hurt my hip-pocket when instead I can simply promote Justin Bieber's latest hairstyle without controversy? - I think apart from the controversy real news causes, much of it is held back because of likely court action and the need to make money for the shareholders. Corporations by-law must take the path that makes the most money (a much bigger concern) so more often than not, will take the easy option because they have no choice. As editor, I pick and choose the stories I report on. My job is to pick and choose the stories that will help my clients sell more products. Sometimes that need is seen as bias, so tomorrow I do an opposite story to prove it's not true. Really, all I want is to sell more papers, get more advertisers and keep my employees in work. Now, having said all that, we move on to Fox. A proud Republican paper. An organisation that has probably made as much money out of this war than there is oil in Iraq. Most people already know that Fox leans with Republicans (but that's probably because Republicans have the most money, own most of the business', employ most of the population, spend the most in advertising) so not many Democrats buy the paper or trust Fox News anyway. That leaves the organisation with a whole pile of Republicans as readers. Why would they report on pro-Democrat or anti-Republican subjects and turn off their only remaining 'loyal' readers? I guess the point i'm trying to make is Fox isn't any less biased than any other news organisation, it's only catering to its market. The size of its organisation, and the number of outlets it has, allows it to cater to both sides of the market whilst leaning towards the people paying it the most money. Certainly, some papers are biased one way or another but they only cater to their readers. Stick with logic, stick by your principles and what you know to be true. Don't believe everything you read in any paper. As Judge Judy says, if it doesn't make sense, it ain't true!