On the flip side, liberals look at the MSM and see a hopelessly corrupted, pro-corporate arena, far out of touch with truly progressive views.  Where, liberals will ask, is the mainstream coverage of labor unions, social protest, and alternatives to consumer capitalism?  When is the last time the news programs or newspapers led with a story about anti-war marches, which over the last few years have marshaled millions of involved citizens into the streets?  Why are there never any truly liberal heroes on the pundit shows, figures like Noam Chomsky, Norman Solomon, Amy Goodman, and George Monbiot?  Why did Phil Donahue, who at the time had the only liberally-slanted show on TV, get canceled during the run up to the Iraq invasion? Why is global warming not the lead story at least once a week, as more and more dire information rolls in about the continuing collapse of vast natural systems? And how did the MSM get duped by the Bush administration's open deception regarding Iraq, when there was a chorus of liberal voices pointing out from the get-go that all of the information coming from the government was crap?  These are certainly not the signs of a "liberal media."  Sure, the MSM may portray some friendliness and tolerance towards personal behaviors that conservatives don't like, but on the more substantive issues of economic and social policy, the media is definitely not in the progressive vanguard.

So which side is right?  Do we have a liberal media or not?  Well, as with many things floating around out there in our popular discourse, this is really the wrong question.  To get distracted by this issue of the media's liberal-ness is to miss the much larger problem: the MSM, by its very nature, can only portray one way of living in the world, which absolutely precludes any discussion of how our social form must change in order to face tough times ahead.  So what do we mean by this, by saying that the MSM can only portray one way of living?  Are we talking about lifestyle?  Well, kind of -- but much more as well.  It's not just that there are a lot of career women and gays on TV.  The important thing is that the MSM treats the One Person-One Job/One Family-One Dwelling social form as absolutely given.  All statistics, all story angles, and all frames of reference assume the goodness and rightness of our current arrangements.  Alternate forms of approaching work, habitation, and consumption simply do not enter the picture, with the eerie result that the MSM can never really talk about the fundamental causes of the epic challenges that face us.

Why is that?  Why do we never really see any mainstream coverage of social form fundamentals and their connection to large-scale problems like climate change, environmental destruction, and Peak Oil?  The obvious answer is that the MSM is itself made up of corporate entities.  NBC is owned by General Electric, CBS by Viacom, CNN by TIme Warner, and ABC by Disney.  Newspapers are also corporate animals.  They have to make money.  With the profit imperative looming so large, there is a clear necessity to make the product attractive to advertisers.  People have to tune in or flip the page, and still be in a positive enough mindset to notice the bra ad or the erection pill commercial.  If people become too upset or enraged with what they are hearing or reading, they're not going to feel like test driving a new Toyota.  So the overall mood that the media creates is one of comfortability with consumption.  Sure, there may be hurricanes, murders, layoffs, and sexual predators galore.  But those things are all one-offs, disconnected from the normal behaviors of normal people.  All the bad news should not give the impression that consumers should do anything differently.  And in fact, the solutions to most problems is to have more or slightly different types of market activity.  Climate change?  No problem -- we'll just buy hybrid cars, institute carbon trading, and jumpstart a new green-energy sector of the economy.  

Because the MSM is itself part of the consumer economy, it can never portray possible social circumstances that do not involve mass employment, mass production, and mass buying.  There can never be a general addressing of the interconnectedness of our most pressing problems, as they relate to the overall human pattern of living on the planet.  In short, the MSM can never drive an important discussion on anything beyond piecemeal "items of interest."  And unfortunately, the same usually applies to our national politicians, who must operate in the same general frame of mind as the MSM, because they need that airtime and column space to get themselves elected.  So the liberal nature of the media is entirely beside the point.  The issue is much deeper.  We can never rely on the MSM to guide us forward into the dark future of Peak Oil.  That's the real media bias.