Pretty much everyone who has eyes and/or ears can see that the broad-based media has a bias on a variety of topics. This is important to the rest of us, not just so that we can whine about it, but because, under the 1st Amendment, the media is intended to filter public policies advocated by politicians down to the rest of us. Therefore, when the media is not taking a neutral approach, or where there is an asymmetry of opinions coming out of the media, it reduces the ability of normal people to make choices that are in their own best interest.
Why does media bias exist? I have my own idea. I think we all are biased, and that these biases are the result of our environment. If, for example, most of the individuals I interact with are of a certain occupation, or a certain social class, or a certain religion, I’m going to think that the views that are in their interests make sense more than those of others with whom I don’t interact. This is because I hear people advocating positions with whom I interact; groups where I don’t get much information, I tend to lack knowledge about. So, it is much more difficult to form rational opinions about them.

So the media can be expected to have biases as well. They are locating primarily in New York, DC, or Los Angeles. They interact with people who are political elites and academics. So, under my story, their views tend to be an amalgam of those with whom they interact. I remember I was watching some talking head show, during the time of the illegal immigration debate, where a commentator said that what the people on the other side didn’t understand is that if people like her couldn’t get a nanny, they wouldn’t be able to work. What she was really saying was that if she couldn’t get nanny dirt cheap, she couldn’t keep working. My guess is that if she was willing to pay more, she wouldn’t be constrained. But the other panelists merely nodded in agreement.
Another example is the different bailouts in the last year or so that the government paid. When the financial firms were begging for our money, the media, right and left, told us how essential these firms are to the economy. Well, the firms are primarily centrally located in New York. I’d bet that most of the executives live near media elites. If they lose, their friends in the media lose. But when GM and Chrysler begged, all we heard about were UAW workers making, $60K, $80K, or $100K per year. Well, how many workers in UAW do these guys ever talk with? So they’re non-entities, and who cares what happens to them.
The media elites are located in places and in environments where people are pretty much universally socially liberal. They end up taking positions that correspond, and believe that any other views are antediluvian. They don’t waste their time considering a logic that doesn’t agree with their pre-confirmed belief system. And yet, they somehow think their views are objective.
What I’m trying to say, I think, is that I can accept that the media has a set of biases. Just fess up, so that normal people know that these guys are looking through a filter that doesn’t represent what the viewers or the readers may encounter.