NO EVIDENCE OF MEDIA BIAS

little evidence to support claims of media bias:
Hohtetter, 1976
Robinson & Sheehan, 1983
Lichier & Rothman, 1981, 1983

increase public concern over media bias is due to liberal bias trumpeted by conservative elites:
Watts, Domke, Shah, and Fan 1999

The press speaks in "multiple messages" but the partisan bias seems minimal; results of this analysis indicate that half of all television news reports gave balanced views of candidates, and no relationship between a newspapers' endorsements and their news coverage. Contrary to popular belief the press is better now at balanced reporting than previous generations of partisan-leaning publications and in fact ironically in some cases reporting is balanced to the extent that it offers no clues to the public on vote choice, hence offering multiple messages that are if anything confusing. As an assessment of then of the press's role in the political process and citizen learning the press seems to be upholding a balance of neutrality; though the 1992 election analysis indicates most newspapers and television reporting as biased toward Clinton, this bias seems to have had more to do with the context of the campaign than to partisan leaning. In addition, the information that is gleaned from press reports seems to be shaped as much by individual political views as by the objective content.
--DALTON, BECK, & HUCKFELDT 1998

Despite recent efforts to uncover claims of partisan media bias little evidence has been found consistent with bias in one direction or another, and those that do find bias are inconsistent regarding the direction or nature of that bias (102)
--EVELAND & SHAH 2003

Individuals' political orientations and social networks play a significant role in shaping perceptions of media bias. This is especially true among Republican party identifiers, strong partisans, and the politically involved, when news media were biased against their own views.
--EVELAND & SHAH 2003

If the press is truly independent, it must logically have the option to agree as well as oppose. By examining news broadcasts at a finer level of detail than previous work has done, this study reveals that both options were clearly and frequently exercised by American journalists covering the Iraq conflict.
--ALTHAUS 2003