The best book by far on the media is Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent.

And the newest book out on the media is Lapdogs by Eric Boehlert. I finished it on the flight back from Europe yesterday (though the only other time I read it was on the flight to Europe the week before).

Boehlert does a great job providing instantiation of both the hypocrisy that you see in situations of false equivalencies and balance. I agree with Yglesias that the shortcomings of today’s journalists are seen in the starkest of ways on cable news, but a close look at the leading print outlets (NYT, WaPo, LAT, etc) are just as bad in their coverage. Boehlert’s book reveals that in ways that I’d never really thought possible. Most of all it seems like this press is not conservative or liberal, just plain shitty. There are many reasons for this, but cowardice, careerism, and corporate fealty all come to mind.

In the book they outline what they call The Propaganda Model and seek to explain the biases inherent in the media by looking at structural economic causes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model

“Objectivity” is not the same as “balance.” This is one of the most widespread misnomers I’ve seen when it comes to our media. A balanced story would present the Nazis’ side, and the Jews’ side. An objective story would add that the Nazis were lying. Or, if I need to sidestep Godwin’s Law, a balanced story presents the ‘global warming’ case (or ‘cigarettes cause cancer’ case), as well as the ‘we still don’t know’ case. An objective story would make it clear that the overwhelming evidence demonstrates that in fact, we DO know.

I’m also a little surprised you talk about journalists being ‘left leaning’. IIRC, a survey I saw pointed out that while journalists as a group may be socially more liberal, they weren’t necessarily any more progressive than the average American when it comes to economic issues.

More importantly, the personal inclinations of a journalist do not necessarily correlate with the slant of the stories they produce, or how their story is edited. Just because someone is liberal doesn’t mean they don’t need a job, or aren’t eager to climb the career ladder. Doing that means pleasing your boss, and the overwhelming bulk of bosses’ bosses are conservative or right wing. (See Ben Bagdikian etc.)

I think you’re right that the media has been ‘enabling’ Bush, and I think that’s been a much bigger factor in his winning two elections than Bush or his administration being more ‘media savvy’ than other presidents.