Before we decide whether or not the media is too “liberal”, we must first define our terms. To me “liberal” means someone who is capable of putting oneself in the shoes of another, a person who has the capacity to view the world through more than one perspective. Apathy is the overriding trait of a true liberal. Mind you, not everyone who calls him or herself a liberal or, indeed, not everyone who is labelled a liberal is, in fact a liberal for he/she does not always possess liberalisms most important virtue.
A good liberal might include Bobby Kennedy, personal life aside, who, though a man of privilege, when confronted with the intense poverty of citizens in the South sought to do something about it. Jesus, in all His infinite compassion, could also be considered a liberal, in the classical sense of the word.
All that being said, it seems to me that the definition of a good liberal is shared with the definition of a good journalist. If a journalist is doing his/her job, his/her greatest strength would be empathy. A journalist’s job is to tell a story from as many points of view as those who are effected by an event or a situation. The problem with modern journalism is not that it is too liberal or conservative in the way that most people think. It is not that it tells a story from either a Democratic or a Republican slant. The principal problem with today’s journalism is that it is too narrow in it’s scope.
For example, when discussing the Iraq War, a “news” (in quotes because they are only alledgedly reporting the news) outlet might ask a Republican and Democratic pundit or politician their thoughts on the matter and, at best, perhaps a US general. At no point does that “news” network invite on an Iraqi pundit or politician, an Iraqi citizen, American soldiers or veterans of the war, their parents, citizens of neighboring countries to Iraq feeling the heat of nearby warfare and absorption of new refugees, our allies in the “coalition of the (not so much these days) willing, CEO and stockholders in companies such as Halliburton, or any other of the millions of people whose lives and livelihoods are directly effected by this act of war. I personally could care less about what Pat Buchanan or James Carville think about what’s going on in Iraq. The only effect it has on them is the amount books they sell and how much they charge for speaking engagements.
Modern journalism is not nearly as liberal as the tenets of the job dictate it should be. When we have three major “news” channels reporting about Iraq 24-hours a day and at no point is an actual Iraq on any of these programs giving his/her very relevent point of view, then I would not call that a case of too much liberalism on the part of journalism. That’s a case of fraud in calling one’s network a “news” channel and dereliction of duty by not expanding the net and reporting the news as it is, through the eyes from as many people as possible. It is only by exposing the viewer to as many points of view as is necessary, can the public then make an informed opinion of one’s own instead of merely relying on the opinions of a bunch of blowhard pundits whose driving goal is to sell you a book, not to tell you the truth.