Have you ever noticed in yourself and others that the type of news show you watch usually reflects your own personal beliefs? This isn't some great epiphany of course, but when was the last time you sat and thought "what does my preferred choice in news broadcast say about me?".
Three different news agencies can present a single story three different ways. Take the situation in Libya; I looked at three different news sites and tried to find one story that all three would cover so I could compare and contrast what each were and were not saying.
Though CNN tries to stay as neutral as possible, it is generally felt that they are more liberal than not. This may not come through so strongly in the way they report their news but rather what they are deciding to report. CNN covered a story on refugees fleeing Libya into Tunisia. They're main focus was on the Tunisian and U.S. governments and how they were assisting the refugees across the border and providing relief. There was a decided lack of attack against the Libyan government in the report and it had a very humanistic focus.
A different incident was reported on by Fox News, however, they had a very different approach to the situation. The title of their story was "Forces Fire Tear Gas as Libya Protesters March" so we can already get a feel for the Fox reporters interest in this event. The report opens with "Forces loyal to Muammar Qaddafi fired tear gas at protesters in Tripoli on Friday as a fierce crackdown that has terrorized parts if the capital the past week seemingly smothered attempts to revive demonstrations calling for the Libyan leader's ouster." Just based on the suggestive language we can already get a feel for the biases of Fox. The rest of the story focuses on the struggle of the oppressed rebels fighting against the abusive, oppressive government. This story plays right to the heart of the majority of Fox's right wing viewers. 
Democracy Now was, to my observation, the
most neutral of the three. Their story on the how
Gaddafi's forces launched attacks on the rebels was
neutral to the point of being dull. I know that you
are supposed to keep biases out of journalism but as
far as Fox and CNN go, they are pandering to an
audience and are trying to keep a viewer-ship.
Biases don't make for good reporting but it does
make for good TV.
It is impossible to completely keep all biases out
of the news because we are humans and we feel ways
about things. I'm not saying that we need to change
our biases or our political views and I'm not
suggesting that you watch a different news program,
however, I do I do believe that our biases are
something that we should be aware of.
