DL has been making this point for nearly 20 years. Salon just now gets it.
There is no such thing as the so-called liberal news media. In reality, there is a corporate news media that polices the limits of approved public discourse and privileges the voices and agenda of the powerful over those of everyday Americans. And in a time of ascendant neofascism, that is a great betrayal of the American people and the sacred responsibility that the Fourth Estate has in a democracy.
“The liberal media” (and its conjoined twin “liberal media bias”) is language that was invented by the American right-wing in the 1980s and 1990s as a way of training and bullying the American news media into serving its agenda – or at a minimum a much more friendly and uncritical space through which to distribute right-wing talking points, dogma, and misinformation.
Steven Harper at Common Dreams yesterday posted a good example of this.
A few weeks back we experienced a troll outbreak here at DL when the New York Times published a column by one of its conservative propagandists, Bret Stephens, that grossly misrepresented a study on the effectiveness of mask-wearing during the pandemic.
Harper explains why that was bad, and points out that the “liberal” New York Times refuses to take responsibility for publishing it.
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/bret-stephens-masks-new-york-times
As noted assorted fools who should have known better, it’s a good example of just how powerful propaganda can be. It’s also a reminder that none are truly free when under corporate control.