Myth: A sizeable number of Americans believe that news media have a liberal bias.
Fact: When you believe things that aren’t true, the truth sounds like bias.
As citizens, we have not merely a right, but a responsibility to be wary of biased news media. Somehow, healthy skepticism has been transmuted into the widely held belief that mainstream news media have an obvious liberal bias and a mission to spread left-wing propaganda. Beyond the media, popular culture icons from Hollywood to the NFL, are commonly thought to despise America and to want to destroy us from within. If the mainstream news media had mostly liberal bias, most Americans would not believe the Core Myths outlined here and would instead vote mostly for liberals and progressives.
At Civics Nation, we believe that most major news media outlets are essentially credible, even if they tend to focus on the sensational and cover vital stories insufficiently. At least it can be said that when news media get it wrong, they admit it, and the people responsible are generally held to account. As citizens, we could all stand to hold ourselves to such standards.
