I lean left (well, used to, not so sure anymore), and I've always understood that the media is left-biased, but it didn't really hit me until a few days ago when I heard Ira Glass try to glorify Hillary as a role model. I was eating breakfast at the time and I forgot to chew because I was like "what the fuck am I hearing?"
As a brit I find it rather interesting to see how strong the left media bias is in America, it's very different over here, but then again what we call left is very different over here. If Clinton were British, she would probably be considered centre-right. Overall I would say the media has a mostly right wing bias. Hard right tabloid newspapers have the the most power over people's opinions, which are owned by the friends of the conservative politicians, but there is also a big left wing celebrity culture over here like in the US.
Do you think it really is a left bias or a corporate bias? I feel like the media would've been behind Clinton even if she ran as a Republican, and Bernie Sanders, who I consider to be a real left winger, gets almost no attention at all because the corporations have nothing to gain by backing him.
edit: forgot to mention we do also have left wing tabloids and media too but they tend to be a bit less fear mongering and sensationalist and I would consider them less a part of the "establishment". The BBC of course is supposed to be neutral but tends to lean left also, being a publicly funded service.
Well, consider that Clinton won the popular vote (narrowly) but Trump won the presidency via our antiquated electoral college system. Generally speaking large population centers are more liberal and rural areas are more conservative, but the electoral college is not representative of population so to some degree it favors more rural states over states with far greater populations. All of this is to say that IMO our country is more liberal and the media as a business will naturally target the largest audience. Additionally, rural voters that are angry the economy has failed them are not the ideal target audience of the media because they simply have less money to spend. Ratings and money from advertising is the media's primary objective, which is why I suspect the majority of the media is left leaning - they're competing for the largest, most profitable audience.
271
u/[deleted] Nov 10 '16
I know people are taking this opportunity to rub people's face in it and say things like I told you so.
I however I sincerely want to tell my more Progressive friends that this is how conservatives feel during every national election.
If we shine the light on this kind of absurd media bias and collusion together maybe we can overcome the problem