firstly, everyone check this site out:
www.mediamatters.org
what i am saying, even though i don't agree with the "liberal" charge -- and let's not forget, what conservatives mean when they say "liberal" is very far from what liberal means, and it's now become a word defined totally on conservative terms -- the media that is labled as "liberal" is much less "liberal" than the conservative media is conservative. it's not a direct comparison. you can't say "i listen to CNN to get the left perspective, and Fox to the the right perspective." you've set up a false binary opposition. and you yourself say that people might "lean left." that's very different from unabashed conservativism.
and, again: is someone who is liberal incapable of doing their job as a journalist? trust me, people -- i've worked in television, i've done shows that have been very political. the producers go to great lengths to be as objective as they possibly can be ... there is tremendous angst and hand-wringing about presenting the most complete picture possible.
you know -- they're DOING THEIR JOB AS JOURNALISTS. do you think the same thing goes on at Fox?
Aaron Brown? i've watched his show, repeatedly, and if anything, he's on the conservative side of things, and he goes to great lengths to appear "unbiased."
look at the others ... Lou Dobbs does a show about money -- do you see any shows on labor unions on CNN? of course not ... you could argue that, by definition, it's a conservative show. Crossfire is hardly liberal (it's also cancelled). for christ's sake, it's the left and the right shouting at each other and one making about as much sense as the other.
i will concede, though, that the majority of people who work in news do have some bias.
these are smart, educated, driven people with college degrees who are well read, urban, and sophisticated. they do probably agree, as a whole, with the following assumptions:
-- all things being equal, there is no difference between the intelligence of the races
-- sexual orientation is not a choice
-- women are as capable as men and should be afforded the same opportunities, which is to say that there is no "natural" sex role for women to fufill
-- life is complex, reality is shades of grey
if such assumptions, to you, are "liberal," they you might have a case about the make-up of people who work in the news.
most of us would probably call such assumptions "mainstream."