An entirely different story that Europe's media has ignored time and time again

Many Germans have picked-up the erroneous impression from the German press that the American media is dominated by conservatives in Fox News, talk radio, the blogosphere and the Bush administration

writes Ray D, while noting that the words French and European(s) can be substituted for German(s) in all cases.

This impression has been largely created by journalists at publications like SPIEGEL ONLINE who feel deeply threatened by conservative, free market ideals and whose intent it is to convince the German public that the American media is dominated (i.e. gleichgeschaltet) by a sinister cabal of scheming neo-conservatives pulling the US media's strings in the background and secretly plotting to control the minds of America.

But the evidence collected over several decades tells an entirely different story that the German media has ignored time and time again: Surveys and studies of American journalists conducted over a period of more than thirty years have repeatedly and consistently revealed a long-standing, widespread and overwhelming bias in favor of Democrats and liberal ideals and against Republicans and conservative ideals.

Here is just some of that evidence:

Be sure you take a look at the surveys and statistics so you see the

cold, hard facts [which] simply do not bear out wild conspiracy theories that George Bush has any significant advantage or control of the mainstream media, let alone the ability to call the shots. The facts have clearly and repeatedly demonstrated that the very opposite is true.

In Europe, however,

criticizing the leftwards bias in the US media would be an unimaginable breach of political principle for a hard left-wing publication like SPIEGEL ONLINE that actually views itself as mainstream. Such criticism would put the publication in an awfully awkward position: It would be comparable to a hardcore heroin addict condemning a recreational pot-smoker as a junkie.