re: Old Farts of the Poli Board - How have the news channels shifted over the years?

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There used to be something called the Fairness Doctrine. It began in 1949

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The Fairness Doctrine was not designed to address bias. It was designed to make stations using 'the public air' to broadcast in 'the public interest.' So, they couldn't show cartoons and soap operas all day.
They had to broadcast PSAs, programs about public interest events, etc. in order to get their FCC license renewed.
It was not an 'equal time for left and right' policy.

When I worked in radio we circumvented the policy by running PSAs at 2am when nobody was listening.

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It remains fair to say Foxl leans right and MSNBC leans left. CNN floats somewhere in the space between the two. Even most of rhis board seemed to agree with this description
Until the Pumpkin singled out CNN as his nemesis. The troops snapped back in line.

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Wrong. I started on this board in 2008 and saw people starting to point out leftward moves by CNN even then. As we wound through the Obama years more and more statements of such cropped up, especially as conservative voices left CNN and were replaced by liberal ones. By the time Trump came along many on this board had already been stating that CNN was to the Left (only those more liberal here were still saying it was center-based).

Conservatives knew the news was biased toward the left but there was no alternative until William F Buckley had a TV show, "Firing Line".
I remember watching "Firing Line" back in the day. Thomas Sowell was on the panel.
The subject was the recent rise in women's wages. A lady on the panel gave credit to the government for the narrowing gap between male and female wages. Thomas Sowell disagreed and the lady was shocked. She gave the statistics showing the narrowing gap over the past twenty years. Sowell spoke up and said, you are using government statistics to make your case. Look at the facts. Twenty years ago, prior to birth control pills invention, women got married had children and spent the next 20 - 30 years rearing a family. Then she entered the work force. A fifty year old woman's earnings were being compared to a fifty year old man's. She had no experience, the man had thirty years experience,so naturally he was making much more. Since the development of birth control, women enter the work force at a much earlier age therefore the wages will be closer.
I was shocked! Finally there is a valid common sense argument for the left's BS and a man with the courage to make that argument.

The National news coverage was still left leaning but they only had one 30 minute broadcast a day, actually just 23 or so minutes when you take out commercials. They had to prioritize their coverage and the panel discussions were in the Sunday morning hour long news programs. News wasn’t really part of our entertainment.

The 24/7 news cycle and social media causes politics and news to permeate every facet of our society.

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I can remember working in radio in the early 90's and having to play a 30-minute horticultural show at 3am on Sunday mornings.

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Well, at least your learned something about horticulture.

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Most average Americans back in the day had no clue what Cronkite's political persuasion was, but those with a smattering of intelligence knew he was a liberal democrat.

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Back then, Liberals could still make sense and be respectful. Today, the default is they're all nut jobs.

CNN is used to be decent with Lou Dobbs

Fox is slowly trending left

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His mentor was Edward R. Murrow. All you need to know.

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yessir

Are you talking about the Clinton news network?

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Old Farts of the Poli Board - How have the news channels shifted over the years?

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This is likely covered. I'll read through the responses later. But I'm in my early part of my 6th decade so I was a reasoning adult as cable news started and then evolved. Don't remember the start date of CNN (1980)so I could have been a non reasoning young adult at that time. So there was CNN and it dominated for 16 years as the cable news network. It was pretty straight down the line in the middle report the facts news. Both Fox News and MSNBC started in 1996. Fox clearly has and had a conservative bent and has changed little though it is moving a bit left at this point. Early on MSNBC saw that Fox was on the right so they took a turn to the left as the "counterpoint to Fox". Within the last 10 years CNN jumped into the fray as a liberal point of view. When GW Bush was elected and the Supreme Court had to rule on Florida, all hell broke loose and it was at that time the 24 hour cable news channel retreated even more strongly into their corners. Things really devolved with the election of President Obama. Cable news channels realized and actively started with advocacy messaging with CNN/MSNBC running interference for democrats. Fox remained as is. So fast forward to now and there is no cable or network outlet for straight down the middle news. If this was the case you'd find some reporters, networks or newspapers reporting plus and minus for both sides.

We are in a dangerous time in my opinion because the bulk of the press refuses to hold both political parties accountable. In fact they now engage to an extent in propaganda. Parties use the press to message and set up the echo chambers. Republicans are at an extreme disadvantage at this time. I can foresee the democrats moving back into power and stepping on the neck of the other side. I hope you young ones realize what is going on here. In fact you likely do and perhaps you think its is fine.