As Glenn Beck’s “9/12” project seemed to exemplify, there are different styles and ways that the media can report on a story. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly obvious that factions of the media are out-and-out lying about its content – in the case of the 9/12 protests, estimates of turnout ranged from 60,000 to two million, depending on who you talk to. That is a rather large difference in opinion, to say the least, and some media outlets/pundits went so far as to publish purposefully misleading photos to push their agenda.

This is just one example of how the media has become bloated and out of control. Phrases such as “liberal media” only exemplify this fact, if only because it proves that “the facts we use” are more important that all of the facts.

It is a fact that Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the gang tout a very conservative viewpoint that is not representative of the American people. Likewise MSNBC, Maureen Dowd, et al are very liberal and do not represent the American people.

And people are starting to notice.

The Pew Research Center recently reported that only 29% of Americans trust the mainstream media, down 10% in 2007. The principal cause for this distrust? The media is dominated by special interests that make their reporting inherently bias. To further this point, “fake” news, such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are much more trusted – presumably because viewers know where the news ends and the jokes (read lies) begin.

But, despite the obvious disharmony between fact and statement, people still complain about the “liberal media” running the show, and enough people parrot this “fact” to create a perception that conservatives have no say in the political discussion (the discussion of death panels, Obama’s place of birth, the legitimacy of torture, and other various right wing topics aside). In politics, and reporting, perception is reality – the myth of the liberal media lives on and our country takes a step backwards because the media allows it to.

And we see this over and over again. The media will latch on to some convoluted story that an intern picked up on the internet and run with it…even after it has long since been discredited by other outlets. The source that reported this obviously false fact will simply claim that “you won’t see this on the other networks” to cover their tails, and the network simply allows the story to run until they no longer make money off of it. In many ways, modern “journalism” is not far removed from modern tabloids.

The simple fact of the matter is that media is amazingly polarized. Yes, there is a liberal media…but there is also a powerful conservative media at play in American politics. One thing that should be agreed upon is that it is harmful to our democracy. Media has always been for profit, however corporate media and the 24 hour news cycle have created a monster that has mutated the fourth branch of government into a monster, and its power to persuade the masses only makes it a greater threat to our freedoms.