There seems to be a lot of challenges to 'sources' below.  Do you consider a media outlet that you agree with all or most of the time a good source?  Conversely, do you consider a media outlet that you disagree with all or most of the time a bad source?  I think it is very difficult to gauge the slant of many outlets. Some are easier than others (Fox News and MSNBC come to mind).  Is Huffington Post a good source?  Is National Review a good source?  How do you gauge?

Personally, I use CNN.com as my news source.  I find myself equally happy with their news stories/opinions and ticked off at them.  Just curious what people think a 'good, credible' news source is since it is seemingly harder and harder to link a story without someone going all Lounge on the source.

It is true that for decades journalists have been on average more liberal than the general population. This has led to some bias in the media as a whole.

But in the modern era journalism has also had a strong code of ethics, primary of which was that reporters were to strive to put themselves above bias. The result was that while overall the media had some leftward bias, it was really not that much. Yes, these are imperfect humans and their orientation bleeds through no matter how hard they try. But they took their professional ethics seriously and their bias was overall far less than that of those who evaluated them.

Then, coincidental with the explosion in mass communication outlets, conservatives effectively marketed the cry that their alternative was needed to correct a horrible bias in the media. "Fair and balanced." "We report. You decide." This, combined with the explosion in outlets, has led to a nation where the vast majority of the population sees only the news that validates their beliefs. Real journalism has been utterly marginalized and the electorate Balkanized.

Most people have willingly lost the ability to understand the difference between bias that inevitably creeps into journalism and an agenda using journalism to further it's aims.

Just look at the current affairs section of any bookstore. At least 3/4 of the covers you see will be partisan hatchet jobs meant only to galvanize their respective blocks and suck in the unwary. The same is true for the Internet outlets and cable infotainment masquerading as news. As never before, people see what they want to see.

Contrary to what I would have assumed, this explosion of options has been a disaster for our governance. As Americans have gravitated to their self validating media camps, they have become more strident in their no compromise instructions to their political representatives. It is no coincidence that this Balkanization of our view of reality has gone hand in hand with the inability of the parties to work together to solve problems. As I have said many times here, Congress sucks because we do.

And we suck in large part because we (the vast majority) no longer see the other side.

Every time I see some blatant slack jawed dittohead ridicule the New York Times as a substandard newspaper I weep for our democracy.