If a recent New York Times is any indication, the majority of Americans believe news-reporting often is politically skewed and focuses on a certain candidate or political orientation.

The survey found 60 percent of Americans today believe bias exists in American journalism.

“The bias in general news media is [in] the way they do their jobs,” said journalism professor Dale Zacher.

There is no inherent bias within the media because the general public is politically polarized and they may overreact because they are dependent on a single news source, he said.

However, people believe news outlets, such as the FOX News Channel, have no effect on political elections.

The survey concluded there is no connection between politics and bias journalism.

Junior journalism major Daniel Robinson said the stations are biased overall.

“There is a bias in journalism, but they average each other with affiliation, and they cancel out,” he said. “Different networks are either liberal or conservative in terms of reporting.”

Robinson said the biases of news channels have an effect on presidential elections also.

“There is some limited extent on the election process because for the [2000 and 2004] elections, different news stations projected different winners for the president”, he said.

There is a notion the correlation of bias isn’t about politics, but offers a different idea.

“The idea of bias isn’t political, but the concept is economical”, said sophomore political science major Jacob Jarrett.

Jarrett said even though different news organizations have a reporting bias on both liberal and conservative sides, the spending of campaign funds [to the stations] play a part in the process as a whole.

Allen May, general manager of Northern Television Center, agrees with the concept of economics, but on a different level.

“It is dangerous to say that there is a bias when applying it to the entire media spectrum”, he said.

May said within the news media, there is only a limited time to develop and report a story. Any form of bias is unintentional due to time budgeting and commercials by businesses, and most stories are not based on a political agenda.

“If you see bias in the news media, it’s practical bias on cutting corners and getting things done as opposed to focusing on a political agenda,” he said.