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WISE UP!
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 Past issues
June 2006
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Why is the mainstream media biased? The mainstream media has a serious bias, but it's not the one the right or the left wants you to believe in. The mainstream media has a bias to make money, sell advertising, and keep their audience. The most popular and profitable paper in the US isn't the New York Times or even USA Today. It's the National Enquirer. The highest paid news editorializer in the country isn't on CBS or CNN or even on TV at all. It's Rush Limbaugh. This media bias comes means they have to dramatize news items and focus on the negative. That sells papers. Readers are bored by "good news" stories. This media bias makes editors really selective, over-reporting on "the hot story" and ignoring everything else. In sports, you'll never hear about the #3 team -- in politics, you'll never hear important updates or corrections once a story has cooled down. To keep their profits up, the media swallows news feeds whole. The media makes more money if they can avoid sending reporters on a bunch of investigative wild goose chases. Expensive and risky. So government and business propaganda are amplified. Virtually all the media in the US are controlled by just five corporations, so there's a lot of self-censorship. Sure, reporters tend to be younger and less conservative...but editors and owners who control what goes out to the audience are older and more conservative. The media bias to watch out for -- conformity and laziness. The only solutions to that bias are letters to the editor, and using a variety of internet news sources to keep yourself informed in the fairest and most balanced way of all. Find out more...
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