Mikkel

I have to throw in my two cents here; It was mentioned a while back that the reporters who write the stories are 9 to 1 left-leaning. But I would have to say that since almost all media is now corporately owned, the majority of owners are right-leaning.

If you have read Timothy E Cook's book, "Governing with the News," he discusses the role of the media in the political process. He speculates that, by today's standards the media is essentially it's own branch of government. He says that the real power of the media is to set the national agenda. Think about it- Clinton scandal, Rove-gate, WMD's in Iraq, etc. If these things didn't get the media's full attention, they may have simply gone away with the rest of the wash (the jury's still out on Rove-Gate. That actually might go away because of the Rogers nomination. A perfect example for you).

Anyway, the point being this. Ultimately the power in the media comes from what they report on, not how they report on it. Regardless of which reporters write the stories, the bottom line comes down to the fact that the corporate owners decide what stories to run.

To sum up:
-the media's real power comes from which stories it chooses to cover
-the coverage of certain stories is decided by corporate owners
-corporate owners are (by and large) more conservative than, say, journalists
-Journalists may be slightly liberal, but how they write the stories has little relevance to the matter at hand.
Conclusion: Journalists have little to no real power when it comes to the influence of the media, therefore their political views have little to no relevance over what bias the media may have.

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In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination.
-Mark Twain