Is there a liberal bias in the MSM

     One basic republican dogma is the theory stating that the American media is ideologically liberal and antithesis to a conservative message. Currently, this republican “truth” is driving a change in the RNC debate rules. In order to become a moderator at a republican debate you must prove you will only vote for a republican in any election.

     According to Joe Scarborough, the host for the popular talk show “Morning Joe”, the liberal MSM is tyrannically ruled by George Stephanopoulos from ABC. George uses some secret method to command all of the liberal American journalist, Joe Scarborough revealed this nefarious conspiracy on November 2, 2015 in a political debate during his show “Morning Joe”. He provided supporting arguments from Ted Cruz.

     I have avoided this debate with conservatives because they accept the MSM storyline hook, line and sinker. Questioning the dogma is like trying to tell a fundamental American Christian that the Muslim Allah is the same as the Christian God, that both religions share the same Abrahamic roots. Question either dogma and you will be at least vilified or possibly gunned down.

     In my search for unbiased proof for this liberal bias I came up empty handed. I did find studies by right-wing think tanks that “proved” the left-wing bias in all media except for a fair and balanced Fox News. Any study that finds Fox, One America News and Newsmax as unbiased has a measurement problem. There are studies by PhD’s from Harvard, MIT, University of Texas and Stanford that found no bias. You can reach your own conclusion about what that means.

     I will propose a different theory about the MSM liberal bias. It is capitalism at work.

     Broadcast and printed media is ruled by ad revenue, all decisions trace back to the corporate balance sheet. Executives review their income statement, study the demographics of their potential audience and then issue their marching orders. Rupert Murdock realized there was money in monopolizing the 20% of the market that is right-wing, while NBC/CBS/ABC focused on the 70% that prefers the middle, leaving about 10% for Rachel Maddow. All very honest capitalist decisions, politics is, at best, incidental.

     The right-wing dogma of liberal bias is ultimately self-destructive, refusing to debate on the Spanish Telemundo cable just alienates the Spanish electorate, insisting on hard right-wing moderators throwing soft balls just makes the debate boring. Protecting the candidates from “gotcha” questions will litter the republican political landscape with weak nominees unprepared for Vladimir Putin or Angela Merkel, will this candidate complain of liberal bias when the Turkish president Erdogan calls out American imperialism?

     Commitment to the purity of any false dogma shuts off the pragmatism required for effective governance.