Here are links to websites that weigh in on the issue of media bias.  Let me know if you find other good sites.

 

The Media Research Center -- http://www.mrc.org/  -- bills itself as "The Leader in Documenting, Exposing and Neutralizing Liberal Media Bias." It looks like the best of the conservative sites to me.  Take a look at their (rather long) guide to identifying liberal bias at http://secure.mediaresearch.org/news/identifybias.html  and/or at their current report on the state of the media at http://www.mediaresearch.org/SpecialReports/2004/sum/sum0104.asp.

 

 Accuracy in Media -- at http://www.aim.org/ -- doesn't have anywhere near the same level of detail and documentation.  But check out their FAQ's for an overview of their position. 

 

Fairness and Accuracy in the Media -- at http://www.fair.org/ -- is a leading organization on the other side of the political spectrum.  Follow the links (starting at http://www.fair.org/media-woes/media-woes.html ) about "What's wrong with the media? for an overview of their analysis. 

 

What Liberal Media?, a recent book by liberal Eric Alterman, has a website -- http://www.whatliberalmedia.com/ -- that includes the book's introduction, some of its appendices, and quite a few reviews.  The introduction is worth reading for a rebuttal of standard conservative criticisms.

 

For a farther left view, there is Third World Traveler at http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com.  Their site provides book excerpts and articles critiquing what they call the "corporate media".  For example:  Self-Censorship and the Homogeneity of the Media Elite" at http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Project%20Censored/SelfCensorMediaElite_PC.html  or "What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream" by Noam Chomsky at http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/MainstreamMedia_Chom.html

 

For a perspective that purports to be academic and non-partisan, check out Columbia Journalism Review at http://www.cjr.org/ .

A number of people write web logs that critique the major news media.  One of my favorites is "The Daily Howler" by former Baltimore reporter (and current stand-up comic) Bob Somerby.  (Warning: Somerby's rhetoric is often over the top, but he usually has a valid point to make.) 

A new effort is Media Matters, founded just a few weeks ago by former right-wing hatchet man David Brock.  Brock and a staff of assistants are "dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Conservative misinformation is defined as news or commentary presented in the media that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda."  They are, among other things, producing daily transcripts of Rush Limbaugh's radio show (so they can criticize what he says).