slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Charles R. McNeill,

As a person who forces himself to listen, read, and generally pay attention to media on all sides on TV and web – and does a LOT of fact-checking, I must state this: One glaring fault I see in nearly all discussions about “CNN bias” is that every day, going on for years now, CNN invites multiple spokespersons from the conservative Republican side – including specifically, Trump supporters/defenders – to speak on all of their major shows. CNN gives them ample opportunity to make wh**ever point they wish to make, and does not cut them off any more than those from the other side – limited only by show schedules and a reasonable and professionally courteous observation of right to equal time.

Although one can often discern a likely PERSONAL liberal/left bias in some of CNN’s anchorpersons and show hosts, it is blatantly unfair to call the network “biased” to the same degree as FOX, OAN, and NewsMax are biased. (There’s another fault right there: So much emphasis on FOX as the sole media representative of the Republican side; rarely any mention of OAN or NewsMax. Check them out.) But CNN people don’t give away their personal biases (by body language and facial expressions) quite as obviously as many of those in the conservative media shows.

Another point that is quite obvious to those of us who examine things carefully and objectively, is that the professional caliber of persons invited to speak on both CNN and MSNBC shows, and the quality of logical conclusions, is MUCH higher than what you will see on the right-leaning network shows. There are exceptions – one especially noteworthy one being FOX’s Shep Smith and his impressively sk**lful and professional debunking of the absurd “Hillary sold 20% of our uranium to Russia” h**x.

Clarifications and addendum: My original points above were intended mainly to address the “CNN bias” idea in context of the O.P.’s CNN-Fox comparison question. Admittedly I didn’t actually answer that question. So: Yes, CNN can be considered “biased left” and Fox “biased right” by prevailing standards in the U.S. So what? Because here’s another glaring fault in many of these types of discussions about media bias – these 2 critically important principles:

Who determines the reference point from which “bias” is judged? In the current political climate of the U.S., it seems everyone makes up his or her own standard. But more of us should realize that compared to much of the "westernized" world (Canada, western Europe, Australia for example), the entire political spectrum in the U.S. is shifted to the right. By their standards, Bernie Sanders would be “centrist” and Hillary Clinton would be “center-right.”

Being “biased” does not necessarily mean “incorrect” or inappropriately judging. The factual basis of reporting and commentary of news sources is an entirely separate issue than its perceived bias. The site mediabiasfactcheck-dot-com attempts to sort this out, but in my opinion still leaves a lot in question. [see **footnote below] But it does reveal that on both the left and right, there are sources with “high factual reporting” and those with “low factual reporting” or “mixed.” (The problem with “mixed” is, how mixed? They definitely aren’t all equal in this category.) The main point is: If reporting on the actual words and actions of a politician/elected official and then fact-checking them makes them look bad, it is not necessarily unfair bias. It is being intellectually honest. If a journalist/commentator were criticizing Hitler the Führer himself during that period, would that make him/her "biased?" How about the opposition leaders in Russia who criticize Putin and expose his corruption – are they being “biased” because they don’t support and praise the established leadership?

This entire discussion has been focused on TV sources, which of course are also web sources these days. We’re leaving out a whole other area of web-only sources such as AP, USA Today, Foreign Policy, The Economist, HuffPost, Slate, The Atlantic, and others (all of which I read), AND Breitbart, Drudge Report, National Review, Human Events, and others (which I also read.) Evaluating all those would be a different discussion. [Want a source that's both relatively unbiased and has high factual reporting? BBC, AlJazeera, Foreign Policy, and The Economist all fit the bill, according to mediabiasfactcheck.]

Disclosure: I am a former conservative Republican. As a kid way too young to v**e at the time, I was posting “GOLDWATER ‘64” stickers all over the neighborhood. I was a great admirer of William F. Buckley. The first P**********l v**e I was age-eligible to cast was for Richard Nixon. I used to work on Capitol Hill for humanevents-dot-com, but long ago when it was a printed publication. (I was only a few years out of college then and had a lowly publishing-production job. But I worked with, and met many significant conservative writers/editors of the time, and I later did freelance photography for the ACU, American Conservative Union.)

**My issue with mediabiasfactcheck-dot-com’s ratings on factual reporting is that when you look at the detailed description about their source for this conclusion, it turns out they are using info from politifact-dot-com – but it’s not that politifact itself is unreliable. The problem is quite clear when you go to that source; It’s that politifact’s file lists false or misleading statements (and true statements) made on a network. So, for example – CNN’s “factual reporting” score is being downgraded on mediabiasfactcheck mostly because of false or misleading statement made by guests on the shows, rather than by CNN staffers – including statements by Michelle Bachmann, Jack Kingston, Ben Ferguson, Sarah Palin, and Rick Santorum, and also a few from the left/liberal side. Does anyone not recognize the logical fallacy of this, that the network’s level of validity is being judged by statements made on it by persons invited to present other sides?

proud republican Loc: RED CALIFORNIA

CNN and MSNBC are two stations that are totally against President Trump and Republicans...And their guests are very anti Trump 99% of the time...FOX however is far more fair to everybody and they guests that are Democrats and Republicans, not just Democrats as in on CNN or MSNBC!!1