Liberal bias in the media is pretty established at this point. Established in the sense that any reasonable person who has put any significant effort into looking into the issue will have come to that conclusion. The main deniers of such bias come, naturally, from liberals. Debating whether there is liberal media bias, for me, is like debating evolution vs. creationism. I'm not going to waste my time debating whether evolution is a fact or not and I'm not going to debate whether liberal media bias is a fact or not. I'll leave that to others who have more time on their hands.

For one thing, the problem with proving liberal media bias is the reliance on statistics on what is covered. There is no quick way to do it. Just as Creationists can pop up a dozen websites "proving" he bible's accuracy, liberals can pop up websites that argue there is no liberal bias or more amusingly, websites that show a conservative in the media.  I happen to believe that most liberals can be convinced of a liberal bias. But to do that, some basic ground rules have to be provided:

1) It's liberal media bias. Not Democratic Party bias. The media is just as likely to fry a Democrat as a Republican. Though I suspect that they relish frying the Republican and the threshold of what gets reported may be a bit different.

2) Liberal bias has to do with social values. Not political ones. Those values specifically revolve around social justice, racism, affirmative action, abortion rights, gun control, the military, gay rights.

3) And the clincher: Liberal bias is unintentional. It is not a conspiracy. It is largely unconscious. It is the result of liberals believing that they are not liberal (or not very). That their views are mainstream. In fact, not only are their views mainstream but they honestly believe that conservative views are fringe. Held by only a tiny percentage of right wing extremists whose views don't warrant coverage because so few people hold those views in their mind.

Here's a clue though for liberals: Most conservatives don't believe the government should be involved in social justice, solving "racism", promoting affirmative action, providing federal rules on abortion (let alone by a court), providing gun control or making special laws for different lifestyles. And about half the population feels this way. Not a tiny "fringe". HALF.

It is item #3 that Bernard Goldberg's new book, "Arrogance - Rescuing America from the Media Elite" deals with. Rather than argue that liberal bias is the result of liberals trying to force their agenda down our throats, it is the result of liberals thinking that their agenda is already shared by the majority of people. With one exception: The New York Times which has spent a great deal of effort these past 3 years forcing its politically correct agenda down our throats.

Liberals in the media tend to think that people who think that assault rifles should be legal are just a bunch of NRA crazies. In fact, a large percentage of Americans, myself included (and I don't even own a gun), believe that.  My writings on my blog here would probably be considered to be "far right" by the liberal media even though my opinions and values are not just shared by a large percentage of Americans but that I am actually to the left of a sizeable percentage because I'm pro-choice, pro gay civil unions, and favor a progressive tax code.

Liberals tend to simply see their views as being more civilized, more sophisticated, more thought out. Conservatives, by contrast, are a bunch of barbarous red necks with Confederate flags on their pickups waiting to lynch some poor African American -- at best. At worst, conservatives are a fringe of fascist rich people who got there by stepping on the hopes and dreams of everyone else.

What humane person can possibly be against affirmative action? Only racists are against that think liberals unconsciously.  Being against gay marriage is just simple bigotry by religious zealots. Pro-Lifers are a bunch of hypocritical nuts.  People who favor the war on Iraq are just stooges of right wing propaganda (particularly Fox News no doubt).  Liberals are "progressives" (think the media would use "progressive" or "visionary" for conservatives? I somehow doubt it). Conservatives are described as "far right", "right wing extremsists", "fascist", "right wing nut", and worse depending on whether it's on camera or off camera.

And what happens is that liberals tend to think that only a tiny fringe element of society believes what conservatives believe. So why give coverage to something only a few people believe? After all, everyone they know has the same opinions they do. They may not even know a single person who doesn't have the same opinions on these issues. So they conclude (wrongly) that those who hold conservative values are actually on the fringes of society. Either greedy rich bastards or uneducated red necks in the sticks who probably can't ready anyway so why bother writing about their point of view anyway?

Michael Moore actually has put this view quite succinctly. He truly believes that most Americans have the liberal views he does. That Republicans are supported by a confederacy of fringe groups that band together. But each fringe group is made up of only a tiny number of largely ignorant hate-filled zealots who are statistically irrelevant.

As a result, when deciding what to cover on TV or in the news, it comes down to focusing on things that they believe the majority of their readers or viewers think worth hearing about. And since they think their viewers hold the same beliefs they do, they pick the things they're interested in covering and exclude the things they think are unworthy.

And that is what I think is the basis of the liberal media bias in America.