[DVaut1]

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The answer to the question is to let the biased media thrive.

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I think this is what ideally would (and had, as you had mentioned, previously happened up until the middle of the 20th century in the US and still happens in Europe) - with the growth of the internet, I think we're moving back in that direction; lots of unabashedly partisan media, with a marketplace that chooses whichever news it feels most comfortable with.

In which case, why fight endless media bias wars; no matter how loud we shout about which media sources are biased, the conclusion is the same: consumers should seek out their own media. There are thousands, if not millions of information sources available.

I couldn't agree more with this:

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We don't need the study mentioned in the OP. It is too late to put the genie back in the bottle. The people know that the media is biased.

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You rightly claim that we don't need such a study! This is at the heart of my post.

But everyday on this board, and in a multitude of other places, I see people going to battle, trying to cite enough evidence to prove media bias on behalf of Media Source X. Why do such a thing?

The only conceivable reason I can imagine that someone would want to expend so much energy trying to prove biases of media sources is to fulfill some duty to inform others; but as you say, BGC:

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It is too late to put the genie back in the bottle. The people know that the media is biased.

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And again, I couldn’t agree more. In which case, I think we ought to recommend those trying to fight the media bias wars – trying to prove that Media Sources X, Y, and Z are biased – need to get off their elitist soapbox and realize that consumers are savvy, and have already judged for themselves which media sources they feel are biased. The reputations of almost all major media sources are almost ubiquitously known. And those completely unaware of those reputations don’t have the capacity/interest to understand/care about the biases that we spend so much time trying to prove anyway.