A U.S. Senate vote eliminated $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with proponents claiming it subsidized biased media. Ted Cruz criticized public broadcasting as influenced by partisan activists and linked media bias to historical conservative complaints dating back to the civil rights movement. Research supports the importance of independent journalism for democracy, highlighting that PBS NewsHour is rated reliable and slightly left-leaning, while Fox News is rated significantly right-leaning. The accusations of media bias often lack empirical support and diminish the role of independent reporting in holding government accountable.
Public broadcasting has long been overtaken by partisan activists," said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, insisting there is no need for government to fund what he regards as biased media.
Trusting independence... Ad Fontes Media... have placed the reporting of PBS NewsHour under 10 points left of the ideological center. They label it as both "reliable" and based in "analysis/fact."
Accusing the media of liberal bias has been a consistent conservative complaint since the civil rights era, when white Southerners insisted news outlets were slanting their stories against segregation.
Those charges of bias rarely survive empirical scrutiny. As chair of a public policy institute devoted to strengthening deliberative democracy, I have written two books about the media and the presidency.
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