Every night millions of Americans turn on the evening news to get the latest information on domestic and international affairs. Unbeknown to many, the media is very powerful in that it has the ability to shape the opinions of viewers based on the way it reports the news and what it decides to report. Whether the media has a liberal tendency or a conservative can be in the eyes of the beholder to some extent, but various media can consciously lead you to believe one way or another.
             Bias comes in many forms, but they all have one feature in common: one-sidedness. The media is one-sided if it systematically has the tendency to suggest one answer, opinion, or conclusion. This may result from a deliberate attempt at distortion or unintentionally, but either way the effect is the same.
             For example, if The New York Times chooses to write badly about two opposing politicians, but one article is on page one; whereas the other is on page twenty-four on the bottom of the page, this creates a bias. Similarly, if a news channel reports only one side of a story, this is bias. This can be done by only interviewing people on one side of the issue or deliberately selecting someone based on their views. The most blatant form of bias comes about when the media fabricates information about someone or a topic in a deliberate attempt to mislead. Information can also be disseminated not only though straight fabrication, but because the media has not fully investigated a story because their subconscious bias, as happened in Dan Rather's story concerning the President's service in the guards.
             Bias also depends on the function of the news. If a well-known economist discusses in depth the deficiencies of a presidential candidate's economic policy in an editorial page, this is not bias because the point of the editorial section is to voice opinions. Conversely, if a news anchor of the nightly news completely castigates a...