Media criticism is healthy, and no outlet is above scrutiny — including Fox News. But singling out one right-leaning network while ignoring the overwhelming leftward bias of the rest of mainstream media reveals a selective concern about propaganda.

The data on media bias is extensive. A study by researchers at Arizona State University and Texas A&M found that journalists' political donations went to Democrats over Republicans at roughly a 10-to-1 ratio. A 2023 Gallup/Knight Foundation survey found that 62% of Americans believe the media is biased, and trust in media is at historic lows across the political spectrum.

The Groseclose-Milyo study of media bias, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, analyzed 20 major U.S. media outlets and found that 18 of 20 had a liberal slant relative to the average member of Congress. The only outlets to the right of center were Fox News and the Washington Times.

Consider the landscape: ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, most major city newspapers, most late-night shows, most social media content moderation teams, and most university journalism programs lean left. Fox News and a handful of others lean right. If anything, the remarkable thing is that one right-leaning network generates so much concern when the entire rest of the media ecosystem leans the other direction.

Media bias manifests not just in opinion programming but in story selection — what gets covered and what doesn't. The suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 election, which major outlets initially dismissed as 'Russian disinformation' before later confirming its authenticity, is a case study in coordinated bias.

A healthy media ecosystem includes voices from multiple perspectives. Having one major network that presents a right-of-center perspective isn't a problem — it's the bare minimum of viewpoint diversity.