It should come as a no surprise that media has always had a biased opinion. Whether you are watching the latest Hollywood blockbuster, listening to the radio or reading an article online, there is bound to be a hidden agenda behind the communication. In recent times though, it looks as if media has become dominated by liberal politics.

When I talk about mass media, I’m referring to most forms of communication, such as newspapers, television, movies, online articles, radio talk shows and social networks. When I say there is a bias problem, the problem doesn’t lie with commentators or opinion columnists since these people are expected to have an opinion. But when someone is bringing news, there should be no bias to ensure the news isn’t spun.

The liberal leaning of the media is poured out in statistics. According to an infographic from Frugal Dad, out of all of mass media, six corporate giants control 90 percent of it all. Those companies being Disney, Time Warner, News Corp, GE, Viacom and CBS. On top of this the president of CBS, David Rhodes, has a brother who is part of the Obama Administration.

With the presidential election approaching, many topics are being covered on the news. One of these topics includes free college tuition. While the media loves to say that President Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders promise free college, they always fail to tell people that it wouldn’t be free and would cost over $80 billion. Media outlets like ABC, NBC and CBS love to hide these facts simply because it doesn’t fit well with their agenda.

The best example of media bias is how they have been covering the recent protests at Donald Trump rallies. When looking at the news coverage of the protests, an analyst from MRC studied 45 segments from ABC, NBC and CBS where the topic was the protests. Forty-six times during these segments Trump was blamed for the violence while only three times the liberal protesters were blamed, even though police officers from the rallies admit that the protesters were inciting violence.

While I might disagree with most liberal politics, my point is not that liberalism is necessarily bad. My point is that it should be clearly noted that when listening to the “news” there is almost always an agenda not spoken in plain English, and this agenda should be considered when listening.

Media has a huge influence on personal opinion. The average American watches over 150 hours of television a month. That’s just television, not including reading articles or listening to the radio. How is it possible to not be influenced by something that you are constantly connected to?

Now I walk around and hear the same rhetoric thrown around in every conversation. As much as I would like to believe that everyone has a unique opinion, listening to most people makes me believe they have been overly exposed to CBS and are just regurgitating what they heard from a journalist.

This leads to the obvious problem that people are being taught what to think instead of how to think. Mass media has shifted from a way of bringing information to viewers and readers into a way of advancing political belief. So much so that media will go against their purpose and block information.

People should listen to the media with very skeptical ears. If anything, listen to both sides of a story and gather the facts that are being hidden from both sides. Then people should be capable of making their own judgment based off of what is known.

Jeff Guzman can be reached at [email protected] or @theorion_news on Twitter.