[DVaut1]

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1. When you rule out government coercion (which we should), then what else is left? The only response to bias in the media is to get your information and opinions from another source.

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2. America's founders knew that freedom would flourish best in an atmosphere where every opinion would be voiced, and ordinary people would be able to choose an appropriate course of action from the "marketplace of ideas." Therefore, the best possible scenario is one where everybody gets their news from different sources and viewpoints.

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So, we can agree that the best possible solution (in fact, the only viable solution) is caveat emptor, or buyer beware?

I think you're onto what I'm getting at here; even if we could satisfactorily prove bias, the recourse would be the same - consumers should seek out whichever news source which comforts them most. And, as you said, with the prevalence of the internet, that task has become relatively easy.

Since you've touched upon what I thought was relevant, I can move onto my larger point: if we agree that, no matter how conclusively we can prove media bias, the only recourse is to recommend that consumers look upon their information sources with scruitny, why do we (that is, those of us interested in discussing politics) expend so much time and energy trying to prove systemic media bias? Even if we could prove which sources have blatant biases, the conclusion would be the same; that conclusion being something along the lines of, "consumers should seek out news sources which they feel most comfortable with."

The conclusion that we would hope to reach has already been reached, sans being armed with empirical evidence. So, why spend so much time trying to prove biases?