Congratulations to RightMichigan for being able to recruit a true-blue garden variety leftist.  

The simple fact of the matter is, public opinion is greatly formed by media.  It is typically here that we can get our news and keep track of the nation's pulse.  When Cronkite told the world "that's the way it is" people believed him.  Of course, it wasn't until later that Cronkite revealed his desire to form public opinion rather than inform the public.  More recently this feigned objectivity isn't even a priority as networks march out self-declared leftists to do their work.  Now, if the hard news cannot be spun to meet an agenda, the newsmedia creates the news itself through news manufacturing such as the 60-minutes Texas Air National Guard expose, or the dustup of Valerie Plame and her "outing" by White House operatives.  

You give me Fox News...I give you CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Hollywood, NYTimes, Washington Post, LA Times (among nearly all other major papers,) NPR, Time, Newsweek, etc.  God help us all...even the Weather Channel has outed itself!