It's important to point out, that there's nothing necessarily wrong with bias, the real issue should be with inaccuracy. It's not enough to say that this or that news report is biased, you actually have to show how it is wrong.
It was quite common for people to obtain all of their news from biased, or at least "politically informed" viewpoints, news sources, etc. throughout the 19th century and into the middle of the 20th century, and the results were not an utter calamity. people used to be responsible for reading news from several different sources, much like they are now on the Internet, and then forming their own opinions from the consensus, or at least their appreciation of the consensus.
The fetish for "balance "in journalism only started in the 1950s, afternoon national television networks in the United States started airing news broadcast, and the government and activists feared that three national news networks simply didn't give enough opportunities for people to hear a multitude of opinions. Thus, the early journalists who worked in television attempted to create a certain "tone" or ideological conceit that was apparently neutral.
Of course, "balanced" journalism is just as ideologically-biased as anything else, it's simply biased towards the belief that there are two sides to every issue and these two sides are of equal merit. And since the deeper a complex issue is covered, the more likely the reporter's perspective is likely to show through, a "balanced" journalist is likely just not going to delve too deeply into issues. Because, in the end, appearing fair is more important than telling the truth.
in my opinion, a reporter isn't worth his salt unless he has some kind of deep-seated values and beliefs, and the problem with a lot of cable journalism is they simply deny this from the outset, and this leads to bland, uninformative infotainment. Which is why we have TDS.