Hard to say. Basically, media with a "liberal" viewpoint tends to take the more "liberal" side on issues: the side asking for reform in regards to free trade, industrialization, environmental policy... while a more "conservative" media takes the side of big business or the conservative faction in government... typically... of course, from what I see of media, most simply latch onto whatever makes the best sound bites... except in the US, where there's a more clear delineation between more wildly "liberal" (uhmmm... New York Times) and more obviously "conservative" (Fox) news channels.
Of course, "liberalism"
generally asks for the protection of civil liberties and freedom from "big government". The "Free Market" is a liberalist idea.
But some of the news and agendas on so-called "liberal" channels don't fit that... eco-politics and health politics on everything from tail-pipe emissions to smoking bans are not issues of civil liberty, but of dictating to people how to live (granted, freedom from death is a freedom... but where does the freedom to choose
how we die come into this? We have the right to choose our sins! I'm serious on this... and I'm not in favor of banning, say, transfatty acids on the flimsy grounds that it's bad for us... because even too much water can kill a man.) In other words, these agendas aren't for liberty at all, but for the regulation of human activity by government "for their own good".
Conservatism technically means the move to preserve the status quo... but then again, modern conservatism is slightly different. It frowns upon big government interfering in the liberties of people and business... argues for self-regulation for business, and is of the mind that changing the established government on a whim is bad for things... in other words, leave the government as it is, and let people decide on their course of action in other things (in other words, let people decide if smoking, fat, etcetera is bad for them... of course, I don't rightly know if it's the liberal side or the conservative side of the argument pushing for marijuana legalization...
)
I have no idea how the increased monitoring of citizens by government, warrantless arrests and detainment, and the invasion of other countries, etcetera, since 9/11 fit in with this viewpoint... but that's a government thing... (and yes, some of the Dems also voted in favor of Iraq)... and possibly not a "conservative" thing per se.
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Many outlets worldwide just parrot whatever press release comes their way, from whatever source, and don't
seem to have the same strength of bias, except where the news may affect their parent company... which is why there's a lot of restrictions in place against a monopoly of multiple media sources by one company... we've often argued here about whether media has a liberal or conservative slant... and a lot of people have evidence to prove both for a number of US sources... but I suppose that's because those sources are all closer to the news in particular and are affected directly by the events involved due to corporate interestsor due to political agendas of their corporate parents... which affects their neutrality. From outside, both points of view receive equal reporting... well, equal only when the sound bites are newsworthy...
...obviously, "liberal" issues are newsworthy because they're often complaints about the state of the world. Printing or broadcasting news saying that everything is "hunky dory" just won't cut it.
