Is there such a thing?

One of the most popular sports today is to bash the media for “the media bias.”
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The most common claim is that the media are too liberal.
But some politicians feel that the media are too conservative.
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So, is there a “media bias”?
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And, if so what is it?

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It is simply a cop out when some politician, some corporate executive, or some other public figure gets caught with his / or her pants down!
Why? Let’s look at some simple facts about the media.

Let’s look at what the mass media are specifically, and what they do for us as media consumers.
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First: What are the mass media?
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They are: newspapers, magazines, books, radio, television, movies, music recordings, and the world wide web.
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8 specific industries

As mass media consumers, what exactly do we get from these mass media?
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Information
Entertainment
Persuasion
Societal bonding

A pragmatic look at the infrastructure of the mass media - Radio
Commercial U.S. FM radio stations 5590
Commercial U. S. AM radio stations 4720
Noncommercial U. S. radio stations 1960
Total U. S. radio stations 12,270

A pragmatic look at the infrastructure of the mass media - Television
Commercial U.S. television stations 1310
Non-commercial U. S. television stations 370
Local cable television stations 11,600
Total U. S. television stations 13,280
Plus the major television networks

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CNN, MSNBC, Turner, ESPN, Time
Warner, AT&T Broadband, Cox,
Charter, Comcast, etc., etc., etc.
Thousands of electronic media in US alone.
Each of them has hundreds of gatekeepers

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Daily Newspapers 1570
Weekly Newspapers 8000
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Magazines 12,000
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Book Publishers 12,000

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Movie Industry
Music Recording Industry
Internet / World Wide Web
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Thousands of organizations
Hundreds of thousands of gatekeepers

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Rapid growth
Same kinds of numbers
Appearance of more independent media enterprises

Do you really think that there is “a media bias” that is shared by:
The Dayton Daily News,
MSNBC,
The Christian Science Monitor,
Bertelsmann Publishing in Germany,
WDTN Channel 2 in Dayton,
Televisa in Mexico City
And Al Jazeera in Qatar?