Of all the true things we all already know, the one that sticks out the most in political discussions is, there ain't no such thing as a liberal media. Or, at least, not in the way that wingnuts and corporatists mean it. There is no deep, liberal conspiracy to control the tone and the content of mainstream news, and anyone who paid the slightest attention to world events would know it.
Corporations control all major media outlets,and those corporations are owned and operated by an interconnected web of wealthy, generally conservative elites. Like all corporate assets, news and information programming on every single major outlet is only used to advance the interests of those corporations, even if only by not covering negative stories about their parent companies. Fox News is the most obvious purveyor of soft peddled corporate shilling when News Corp routinely tramples the laws of every country in which they operate, but even "librul" MSNBC got caught carrying parent company GE's water when it came to light that they're the world's biggest tax dodger.
As the core principle of liberalism is equality and cooperative society, the very idea of a liberal media bias is absolutely inane. Corporations simply could not conduct their affairs in line with progressivism, both because the culture of corporatists would rebel at the notion, and because corporations are bound to operate at all times with the profit motive firmly fixed in view. A corporate media that really acted like liberal entity would, in most cases, be in violation of corporate law, and likely would face a shareholder revolt.
So, as if it weren't already an open secret, the mainstream media is nowhere near the liberal institution comic book bad guy Roger Ailes has maintained it was since Nixon was POTUS. Duh. But if one were disposed to believe that the mainstream media were a bastion of liberalism and a willing coconspirator to defame conservatism and advance the liberal agenda, maybe the cautionary tale of Governor Rick Perry might change your thinking.
I submit to you a simple hypothesis: If the mainstream media were complicit in a liberal conspiracy to advance Democratic policies and further the careers of Democratic politicians, then none of the following stories about Rick Perry would have seen the light.
Rick Perry: Evolution is 'theory' with 'gaps' - USA Today
Perry criticizes government while Texas job growth benefits from it - The Washington Post
Perry once invested in company that profited from porn - McClatchy (via Miami Herald)
How much does it worry you if both Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry have ties to Dominionism? - CNN
I say that the standard to which we would hold a liberal mainstream media is one in which every story would aid Democratic politics. If our media were pushing President Obama's reelection, those stories would be bundled up and handed off to Organizing for America as oppo for the General. They certainly wouldn't be airing this stuff in the Primaries, where they could be used by Perry's Republican rivals to defeat him.
I say this because I'm absolutely salivating at the idea of a Obama/Perry matchup. This country has all but forgotten the 8-year trainwreck of the Bush Administration, but one whiff of Perry's paleoconservativism, crony capitalism, kooky religion, anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-anyone who can't donate to his campaign, and America might very well wake right the hell up again.
Now, I'm no fan of President Obama's. He's a Republican from where I stand. But considering the alternative, I want him in that White House for another term, and I'll do everything I can to make sure that happens (short of voting for him again; it's a matter of principle). Now, if I were the media, and I were as liberal as, you know, I am, then the "whatever I can do" part of reelecting President Obama would include saving the juicy stuff for the president to hammer Perry with. Between the two viable candidates, Perry is by far the weaker candidate than Romney, despite the national aversion to the Latter-Day Saints. I think if the media were liberal, they'd stretch out Rick Perry's honeymoon, which lasted a whopping two days, until at least after he'd cinched up the Republican nomination.
At least, that's what I'd do.