Is Media Bias Un-American?

CNN and MSNBC are leftist mouthpieces, and Fox News is scripted by Karl Rove. Let's assume this statement is true, just for a moment. Would it matter? As long as people know a channel's biases (much like how people know the WSJ slants right, the NYT left), what is the problem? Yet, pundits on both sides continue to work themselves into a froth arguing that one of the above news channels has whatever political bias. From Newsweek:

That Rupert Murdoch may tilt the news rightward more for commercial than ideological reasons is beside the point. What matters is the way that Fox's model has invaded the bloodstream of the American media. By showing that ideologically distorted news can drive ratings, Ailes has provoked his rivals at CNN and MSNBC to develop a variety of populist and ideological takes on the news. In this way, Fox hasn't just corrupted its own coverage. Its example has made all of cable news unpleasant and unreliable.

What's most distinctive about the American press is not its freedom but its century-old tradition of independence—that it serves the public interest rather than those of parties, persuasions, or pressure groups. Media independence is a 20th-century innovation that has never fully taken root in many other countries that do have a free press. The Australian-British-continental model of politicized media that Murdoch has applied at Fox is un-American, so much so that he has little choice but go on denying what he's doing as he does it. For Murdoch, Ailes, and company, "fair and balanced" is a necessary lie. To admit that their coverage is slanted by design would violate the American understanding of the media's role in democracy and our idea of what constitutes fair play. But it's a demonstrable deceit that no longer deserves equal time.

Who really believes Fox News is "fair and balanced," or that CNN or MSNBC is, for that matter? They're all biased, which means the prudent person follows one simple dictum: viewer beware. Get your information from multiple sources. It takes effort, yes. But expecting someone to feed you the truth without any effort on your part is more Un-American than Fox News and CNN combined.