I had been apoplectic over the brazenly pro-Bush coverage of the 2000 election throughout the media. Not even merely "biased" - it was nakedly propagandistic.

The LA Times, in a front page article that wasn't even labeled as an editorial, called Al Gore names like it was written by a five-year-old. I'm not even exaggerating.

We've since sidestepped that rot through the internet (and replaced it with a different kind of rot - utter solipsism), but there was a period of about 5 years where we were seriously faced with coordinated, Ministry of Truth-style Newspeak in every major US publication.

And it's still there in those sources, but at least we no longer depend on them.