David Shaw revisits the issue of bias in the news media and discovers that ideological bias is present, but not as important as other biases. He says:
But I think the very real biases mentioned earlier — the individual and institutional preference for change, conflict, bad news and sensationalism — are far more common, and far more damaging, than any kind of intermittent, inadvertent ideological bias.
While I have a few (minor) disagreements with this column, for the most part Shaw makes the argument that I often make: If you want a better understanding of what’s going on in press-politics, study the structural biases of journalism.
