During the presidential campaign, I remember reading an article based on a study done of the number of favorable/unfavorable news pieces on and references to the candidates and/or their parties on the national news networks. There were statistics explaining how many times certain networks reported favorable and unfavorable news on one side or the other. In my opinion, that particular investigation was a waste of time.
In the first place, news is supposed to be unbiased. Interestingly, this study publicly voiced something that many of us have already believed and expressed; that the news is anything but objective.
Further, the study reveals nothing about the relevance of the reports. I'm quite sure that someone could write favorably about such individuals as Hitler and the current president of Iran. By the same token, someone could write and probably has written negatively about such great leaders as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The negative or positive spin an outlet puts on a story or their overall news perspective merely reflects the ideology and agenda of the one doing the reporting or editing. Frankly, information like that does me absolutely no good in making decisions based on real facts of history and experience.
Perhaps it would be possible to acquire a comprehensible picture of reality by combining information from all the major networks and drawing an analysis, but the implications of time-intensivity are too daunting.
Frankly, even history doesn't tell us much. I tend to agree with an unsourced quote by John Keegan: History is the projection of ideology into the past.
Maybe I'll snap out of this negative frame of mind soon, but for now, I'm angry at ALL of Washington and a system that has evolved into something far removed from the ideals of the original designers. My frustration is further compounded by news networks that I do not trust to tell the whole truth.
PS: Don't even think about defending your favorite news network in your comments. Well, you can if you want, but I guarantee you I can find evidence of an agenda in every single one of them.