The only thing that was ever true was that a preponderance of the people who ran the media were themselves liberals.

They did not ever run their media organizations with the willful manipulative bias seen in the likes of Fox, Drudge and such.

There is a difference between 100 liberals who happen to run a newspaper, and 100 conservatives setting out to run a conservative newspaper that will focus on conservative viewpoints and highlight news positive for conservatives.

The difference is the intentions and the aims. Liberals never set out to make the media "biased" and in fact worked hard mostly to avoid their personal biases. They failed from time to time, but the effort matters.

It's the difference between a newspaper which leans a little left and here and there makes a mistake in favour of the liberal POV, and a wholeheartedly 100% conservative one.

Much worse, is that most of the conservative media arms doing such things do so deceitfully under the premise of being "objective"

My clue: The louder a media arm proclaims how respectable, objective and unbiased they are, the more likely they are not any of those things.

I assume bias from anyone who's column or blog I read. I judge one's opinion based on how well it is backed up with facts and analysis, not by how objective it is. Since I already assume everyone has a bias, I am not really concerned with why they have a bias. Also, I don't really consider a biased person who has claimed to be objective to have made a misleading statement because I find such a statement to be a fairly reliable indicator of bias. So perhaps this information is relevant to people who believe in such a thing as objectivity, but not to me.

Yes, but much of "analysis" is subjective anyway. George Bush looks as the 2006 election and interprets it as a mandate for "change" in the policy of Iraq. His bias leads him to that conclusion, even though there is much evidence the public wants out, not just a change of tactics.

Also, how can you analyze such bias when looking at a whole media organization? Are news stories from the WaPo as trustworthy in your eyes as those from WaTi or Fox?

Fox invented a story about Obama going to a hard core muslim school. That would have been a "fact" if CNN had not actually investigated the claim and proved it laughably false. We know they lied because it was so transparently false from seeing the school in question.

And some writers are known to be delusional or liars. I wouldn't trust anything Bill Kristol said at this point, he has 0 credibility, and if he quotes certain statistics to back his claims, I will go looking for those stats, and other ones to know how he has manipulated, misstated or invented them, or perhaps what contrary evidence he is ignoring.

However if Murray Waas or Dana Milbank reports something and quotes statistics, I will most likely believe them, because they have not lied before.

Credibility and biases matter. And when Glenn has found a growing list of questionable reporting on the part of the politico, it's not ad hominem to say "Who really runs this joint anyway?"

I vote "the Politicon"

You know, it shouldn't shock us that Conservatives have evidently conspired to create a "fresh" voice of "balanced" coverage full of Republican bias.

Fox has been exposed. They needed a new less tarnished source.

My sincere hope is that it won't work for very long. The same trick won't work twice.

But keep looking for them to try this again if the Politico dies (as it should).

One of the most distressing features of public life recently has been the demise of shared facts. Warring partisans -- many of whom take their news from sources that cater to and amplify their existing opinions

My interpretation of this is twofold:

1) they buy into the equivalence fallacy which claims the left is as detached from reality as the right

2) therefore, the solution is to somehow meet in the middle of the two side's facts to find a mutually satisfactory compromise.

Here is an example of a Republican "fact" from Conservapedia, speaking about the Nixon years:

Any enduring Republican majority, however, was put on hold when the Watergate Scandal forced Richard Nixon to resign under a threat of impeachment created by elements within the Democratic Party opposed to U.S efforts to fight communist totalitarianism.

What would the mushy middle between actual reality and their perceived reality be? It might not be as bad as the above delusion, but it would still be a pack of lies.

So even in their stated mission statement, the Politico is still advocating some alternative reality. It's one that's less distant from the actual reality than is Conservative reality these days, but it's still a fantasy.

Truth does not need lies for "balance."

Probably because he is actually held in high esteem in many right wing circles for "fixing chile's economy" or other such claptrap.

He's probably what they want for America. You're right, he didn't commit genocide, but he was happy to eliminate his political foes, which the Right wingers wish Bush or the next Republican would start doing.

See Altemeyer's book, specifically the questions about wanting a "strong leader" to "purge" society of undesirable elements.

So short answer: He's reviled by the left because he's a model for the right. At least they don't openly praise Franco or the central american tin pots.

Great explanation.