The media has a bias, but not the one everyone talks about. The media’s bias favors cops.

This has always been true. Journalists need access to power. Those in power provide information that cannot be obtained otherwise. Reporters trade access for favorable coverage. The best reporters succeed without compromising their integrity. But most of this means interacting with everyday, run-of-the-mill manifestations of power, and for most journalists, and Americans generally, that means law enforcement.

Media’s natural tendency is to sympathize with the police. They are the good guys, criminals the bad guys. And I think this is the right presumption until facts compel us to think otherwise. But I also think this habit of deference is so ingrained in the minds of journalists that even when it’s very obvious that the cops are the bad guys in a story, the media still can’t avoid false equivalency.