it's not a conspiracy theory at all.  conspiracies have to sound at least a trifle unlikely.  the american media is run by human beings who are often totally wacko and have extremely deep pockets.  just look at ted turner and rupert murdoch.  it's only natural that they're open to political influence, bribery, and their own often stupid prejudices.

Well Marquis, you are absolutely correct. No thinking person should ever get their news from a single source. Certainly not in America and from what I get of various international feeds, that maps well to other countries.

For me, I mainly use google news as that gives me a good cross section of English language sources. Often I get my news from India and China feeds. Also, I get news.co.uk and news.com.au. However, the latter two, while better than CNN/Faux news, still seem to reflect American sources more than the others. Probably because we are mostly allied with those two nations.

As far as American sources, for internal issues only, google gives me a cross section of the thousands of American sources that are out there. However, I tend to avoid the big media outlets. Not that I mind getting a bit of opinion in my news. Actually, if you look at some of the history of news reporting, that was really always there. To ask for news free of opinion is probably about as likely as asking for college professors who are free of the same. Never happened, never will. Truth be damned.

As Iwibeck observes, there is the whole Murdoch/Holmes propaganda war. That nonsense produces far more yellow journalism than real news.

On a side note, the term “Yellow Journalism” refers to a media war from a century ago that helped to draw us into the Spanish American War.

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

Bearing in mind that my primary school years was spent during the 70's, with the world view that followed naturally from this; I must say that I find it more than just a little ironic that Russia Today seems to be a more reliable and balanced source of news from the US of A than any equivalent news channel that they've got themselves.

I usually read the financial newspapers because I think many times they report accurately about things that have an economic impact and it doesn't usually get picked up by the associated press. I still think most of what they print is probably inaccurate though.

i watch Fox, MSNBC, read/watch alot on news on the interweb

the opinion shows on fox are pretty bad (especialy hannity) but MSNBC aint any better (keith olbermann anyone?)

fox does have a great webshow every wednesday called "freedom watch" with judge andrew napolitano

Well, I agree that most Americans don't care, and until recently I didn't care much because I didn't understand anything that was going on.  My problem was that I didn't know who all these people are that they name and all the complicated issues they talk about because nobody bothered to mention to me that what big businessmen and bankers and politicians are doing effected me or my family at all.  But ever since I became aware of some of the ways my life is being affected (especially now that I work and pay my own bills) and aware of the fact that the American dollar is practically worthless, I've been paying more and more attention and I feel so frustrated that I still really don't know what's going on or how I could possibly do anything to make things better.  I mean, what's the point of knowing if I can't change it?  But still, I'm very much interested now, I just don't know where to start to get myself caught up with the rest of all you well-informed people.

Some days I feel older than dirt.  Okay, growing up, I read the newspaper.  And it was a small town, so the local high school football teams were bigger news than any professional or college teams.  But it was before the super bowl, (I SAID I was older than dirt), so there wasn't the same frenzy over the professional games.  I remember my dad and uncle getting excited over the Thanksgiving day college games.

So I'm biased.  I still rely on AP and Reuters and all that, I have just switched to Yahoo news because it so conveniently collects them for me on one web site.  I also like that Yahoo news has more than just US feeds, and groups the articles by topic.  If I want to see the food and garden sections, I visit my local paper on line.

No TV.  No cable.  No satellite.  We do have a TV and occasionally watch a DVD.  But TV news?  Impossible - it ain't news, it's just blathering by a bunch of people who think they have good hair.  Blech.  I think the worse thing Ronald Reagan ever did for news was to introduce sound bites to political commercials.  It used to be - "I'm Joe Blow.  Vote for me for dog catcher."  And if you really wanted to know his opinions, you read the newspaper article where he was interviewed and he had time to explain his views thoughtfully.  Now, people make up their minds listening to 30 second race-to-hell commercials.  And the TV news reflects that downward spiral.

-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.

A bungload of our news media is owned by Murdoch and his lot are FOX and operate out of the US so we get the same bilge through our system mostly because it's coming from exactly the same source.