What is the liberal mainstream media? From the McCain campaign along with pundits like Limbaugh, Hannity, etc. so-called “mainstream media” or MSM is be default liberal and in the bag with the leftist Obama campaign. As reported in the Washington Times:

“The media is now Enemy No. 1 for the McCain-Palin ticket. After the mainstream media over-reached on bashing Palin shortly after her selection (no, her daughter didn’t bear young Trig [although the story led to Palin announcing that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant] and yes, a woman can actually be a mother and have a job, even vice president of the United States), the pair went with it and miss no opportunity to slash the press corps (see Schmidt, Steve, on his feelings about the New York Times)”.

When we pull all of the networks and papers out of the picture that are on trial for being liberal (which itself is a term that begs definition other than an ideological opposition to a given stance on something), we are left with Fox News, perhaps the National review, and more balanced would be something like the Washington Times.

However, Fox News, despite its “Fair and Balanced” slogan, clearly has and has been shown to have a decided conservative bias. It has provided an alternative to a perceived liberal bias in the so-called mainstream media. That is to say, it has a Republican bias lest we think conservative in this arena has something to do with anything other than political ideologies or points of view.

Founded by cult leader Sun Myung Moon in 1982 the Washington Times started its circulation as an alternative paper to the Washington Post inside the beltway. It has not been a money maker and has only been kept floating by continuous investment of capital by Moon himself. It is clearly a conservative publication with the intention of providing a conservative voice.

The conservative bias of The National Review is clear and obvious as the source “for Republican/ conservative news, commentary, and opinion”.

What seems to be the case is a polarization among privately owned corporate media. So where do we go for news that is balanced and fair if decidedly conservative media tell us of the liberal bias of anything not themselves and the named liberal sources write those conservative sources of as not true and/or not legitimate news sources? The truth is that corporate media has a job to do: get readers by building an audience in order to sell advertising which is where the real money is made. So it would seem that if we focus on sources that are non-profit we would get a more fair shake right?

That leaves us with sources like NPR and PBS as well as non-American sources like the BBC in order to get that fair and balanced media. But am I safe? Public Television has also been under scrutiny for a suspected liberal bias which seems to account for any criticism levelled against the Bush administration. PBS has also been the target of conservative criticism that seems to view any criticism of the Republicans as having a “bias”. Most of the attention has gone to Bill Moyers. The BBC is under scrutiny, but less so.

So it’s hard to know where to go to get a fair and balanced news story apparently. What is troubling is that this straw-man “main stream media” seems to be more and more in reference to anything that is not reporting with a decided conservative slant. As this report from the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) reveals:

“Since the primaries ended, on-air evaluations of Barack Obama have been 72% negative (vs. 28% positive). That’s worse than John McCain’s coverage, which has been 57% negative (vs. 43% positive) during the same time period.

This is a major turnaround since McCain and Obama emerged as front-runners in the early primaries. From the New Hampshire primary on January 8 until Hillary Clinton dropped out on June 7, Obama’s coverage was 62% positive (v. 38% negative) on the broadcast networks; by contrast, McCain’s coverage during this period was only 34% positive (v. 66% negative).

Obama ran even farther behind McCain on Fox News Channel’s Special Report with 79% negative comments (v. 21% positive), compared to 61% negative comments (v. 39% positive) for McCain since June 8. During the primaries Obama had a slight lead in good press on Fox, with 52% favorable comments (v. 48 % unfavorable), compared to 48% favorable (v. 52% unfavorable) for McCain.

Obama’s bad press has come at a time when he was much more visible than McCain. Since June 8, he has been the subject of 120 stories on the three network evening news shows, 50% more than John McCain’s 80 stories.”

The CMPA is hardly a partisan group either way you slice it. Read their methodology here. Not only is it hard to know where to get fair and balanced news, it is also hard to find actually substantiated data revealing a clear liberal bias in so-called main-stream media. McCain and Palin need to remember that they are not running against the media in as much as a sports team is not playing against the officials, regardless of what you think of their calls during the contest. It’s a straw-man that will only take root with a minority in a shrinking conservative base who are beholden to decidedly conservative sources and pundits.