British opinion columnist considers the impact of US media

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections20 ... 16,00.html

I also suspect that a bigger reason for the slimness of Bush's lead has to do with the traditional American media's role as an increasingly open arm of the Democratic party. Evan Thomas, assistant managing editor of Newsweek magazine, famously observed that the media "wants Kerry to win", and speculated that this support from the press would be worth fifteen points at election time. Thomas later backed off this and speculated that press support for Kerry might be worth a mere five points, but even that is enough to explain why there's still shouting going on, instead of a clear victory for Bush.

The good news is that the traditional press's influence is shrinking, because people have caught on:

"Two polls released last week found that more people perceive the media tilting coverage in favour of Kerry than Bush. Gallup determined that 35% think coverage has tilted toward Kerry compared to just 16% who said it favoured Bush. The Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press discovered that "half of voters say most newspaper and TV reporters would prefer to see John Kerry win the election, compared with just 22% who think that most journalists are pulling for George Bush."

Thanks to the internet, cable news channels and talk radio, media bias is easier to spot and easier for people to bypass. This not only changes views, but prevents the formation of a phoney consensus - what experts call "preference falsification" - resulting from widespread, and unified, media bias.