[xoxoxoBruce]

Introduction
Unbiased political media coverage is vital for a healthy democracy (1). Most Americans want their news free from political bias; indeed, a dominant majority (78%) of Americans believe that it is never acceptable for a news organization to favor one political party over another when reporting the news (2). Journalists hold strong norms to eschew bias in their coverage of politics (3). However, when asked about the coverage of news organizations in America less than half can identify a source that they believe reports the news objectively, less than 30% trust the media to get the facts straight, and less than 20% trust the media to report the news without bias (4). Since 1989, the number of Americans stating that there is a great deal of bias in news coverage has nearly doubled (4).

Simply put, many Americans believe that the news media do a poor job of separating facts from opinion (4). With the strong influence that the media exerts on citizens (5–7), the increased salience of fake news (8–10), and “unprecedented” levels of violence against journalists (11), understanding the potential biases of the media is vital. Ideological bias is central to the concerns that Americans harbor about the news media. Concerns about liberal media bias are widespread. Many Americans believe liberal media bias is prevalent and pernicious.
According a 2017 Gallup poll, 64% of Americans believe the media favors the Democratic Party (compared to 22% who said they believed it favored the Republican Party). Indeed, consternation over the liberal bias in the mainstream media runs rampant— making its way into commentary of the state of the news media from political pundits (12) and academics (13), into too many social media discussions to even begin to mention, and even into the stages of presidential debates and townhalls.
There are reasons to expect that this perspective may comport with reality. Some evidence suggests that journalists have more liberal views than the general public (14). Given this, we might expect political ideology to fundamentally shape journalists’ views about what is and is not newsworthy (15). Yet, it is also possible that the public perceives ideological bias because they are psychologically motivated to see bias in the news (16).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ifmpw7fr7w...ssion.pdf?dl=0