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I call it the Fox News Syndrome.  Most every liberal has it.  It's a natural antipathy towards the presentation of anything remotely resembling a balanced news report.  If the news piece is not loaded with left-wing bias, and actually dares to present the conservative perspective at all, it is immediately regarded as right-wing. 

It's sort of like the Supreme Court's ruling in Edwards vs. Aguillard back in the 80s.  That was the decision that said any state law that required a balanced teaching of Creation and Darwinism, was clearly to advance the belief that a supernatural being created the universe.  Uh?  A law requires both sides to be presented, and the liberals on the Court see that as "clearly" advancing the conservative side.  So their decision was to eliminate the conservative side, thus bringing their new version of "balance."

It's exactly what has happened in news analysis.  For years Americans at large, but liberals specifically have been conditioned to expect nothing but a liberal perspective in the dissemination of news regarding political and cultural events.  When Fox came along and actually started voicing the conservative side along with the liberal side, it was seen as "clearly" advancing the conservative view.  In other words, if it's not all liberal, all the time, it's unfairly "right wing."  Right.

Along those lines comes this piece from Politico, actually suggesting that President Obama is being unfairly treated by the media (yes, try not to choke on your tongue as you read this little beauty):

But a study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism finds that, in the past five months, the reverse has actually been true: Obama has received the most unremittingly negative press of any of the presidential candidates by a wide margin, with negative assessments outweighing positive ones by four to one.

Let me start off by saying I have a great deal of respect for Pew.  I think they do an admirable job from everything I've seen.  So it's important to understand when looking at data like this that Pew has included far more than just major network and cable news stories in their study.  They've included talk radio and even blog posts.  Much of that kind of "press" is opinion based.  There is a difference, obviously, between opinion based journalism and "objective" media.  It is so-called objective media that has always had a glaring bias towards the left.  But this somewhat significant morsel of reality didn't seem to faze those on the left who seized this Pew report as proof that the Obama/Media love affair isn't real:

Jonathan Alter, a columnist for Bloomberg View and author of "The Promise: President Obama, Year One," argues that the charge that the media were in the tank for Obama was never really true and that the president has been fighting an uphill battle with press coverage for almost his entire term.

"It hasn't been the case over the last six months, it's been the case over the last 2½ years," he said. "Obama never got a honeymoon, if you actually look back into the early days of his presidency. He got very positive press on the first day, and he's been in the scrum ever since."

Well that about takes the cake, doesn't it?  All the adoring profiles, all the magazine covers, all the God comparisons, all the fluff interviews and softball questions...nope, none of it ever happened.  Give me a break.  Tim Graham wasn't buying it either:

 

Tim Graham, who tracks evidence of liberal media bias as the Media Research Center's director of analysis, doesn't buy it.

"Obviously, we are in an atmosphere now where you can't be as gassy about how wonderful Obama is, because reality has intervened, but I think that there's still a notion that he's the sober and the serious one. That's what they are trying to sell: He's the sober and serious one who is trying to solve the problems."

He still believes the media favor Obama.  "There is still a rooting interest in the media as far as we can tell," he said. "You are just not seeing the magazine covers of him looking like FDR anymore."

Precisely.  It's impossible for the media to talk about Obama now without discussing his governing.  And try as they might to find something positive in his record these last few years, they can't.  No one is going to buy the tripe they sold during 08 because people are living in the Obamaconomy.  Reality has a way of destroying silly media fantasies.  So any reality-based reporting is going to be regarded as "negative" for Obama, because he's created a negative atmosphere in the country!

But the real rub of this story came towards the end.  This is the part that is worth paying attention to and heeding:

Either way, the clear change in the media's mood raises the question whether Democrats would be wise to take a page from the Republican playbook and begin working the media refs themselves.

Yes, that's right.  Get prepared for the liberal Democrats to start complaining that Barack Obama is not getting a fair shot from the media.  Like I said, try not to choke on your tongue when you hear it...believe it or not, they're desperate enough to try it.