This Norman Solomon article is not recent (3-21-2002), but it completely destroys the myth of the "Liberal Media."

During the last few months, former CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg's new book "Bias" has stoked the "liberal media" canard. His anecdote-filled book continues to benefit from enormous media exposure

In interviews on major networks, Goldberg has emphasized his book's charge that American media outlets are typically in step with the biased practices he noticed at CBS News – where "we pointedly identified conservatives as conservatives, for example, but for some crazy reason didn't bother to identify liberals as liberals."

But do facts support Goldberg's undocumented generalization? To find out, linguist Geoffrey Nunberg searched a database of 30 large daily newspapers in the United States. He disclosed the results in an analysis that aired March 19 on the national radio program "Fresh Air."


Nunberg discovered "a big disparity in the way the press labels liberals and conservatives – but not in the direction that Goldberg claims." Actually, the data showed, "the average liberal legislator has a 30 percent greater likelihood of being identified with a partisan label than the average conservative does."

...

It's unlikely that factual debunking will do much to slow the momentum of those who are intent on riding the "liberal media" poltergeist. It has already carried them a long way.

Not surprisingly, President Bush displayed Goldberg's book for photographers at the White House a couple of months ago. For a long time, GOP strategists have been "working the refs" – crying foul about supposed media bias while benefitting greatly from the efforts of an unparalleled national media tag-team that includes the likes of Rush Limbaugh, a slew of corporate-funded think tanks and plenty of rightward pundits in print and on television.


It doesn't hurt that – during the last 70 years – the Republican presidential candidate has received most of the daily newspaper endorsements in 16 out of 18 elections. How's that for "liberal media"?

(my bold emphasis)

The myth is dead, but it will not lie down.
S