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Email from a friend, Patty - The idea of balanced journalism is a good one as long as there are two equal sources. In the early days of newspapers and broadsheets all reporting was one-sided. Usually it reflected the POV of the owner and/or writer. This so-called 'yellow journalism' often concentrated on scandals and stirred controversy. The idea of balance developed in early US journalism schools and 'newspapers of record' in the second half of the 20th century. When I took journalism courses in the 1980s we were told that stories could have multiple points of view, or only one, depending on the story.

We were allowed to use our research (and bias) to weigh whether an opinion was based on some truth, or part of the real story. But then we were Canadians, mostly learning about newspapers, newsmagazines and radio.

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A major component of media bias is the information they choose not to cover, or to actively suppress. There are many recent examples, such as the (true) Hunter Biden laptop story which broke in the NY Post just before the last U.S. election. The "media bias report" you highlight does not even try to measure this effect, but it would tend to move every media outlet that is on or left of their center line further to the left. I think (I could be wrong) that the outlets to the right of center do less outright censorship of information, and more analysis of it to fit their worldview.

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