As Yogthos sometimes gets mass downvoted merely for posting links and providing short summaries, I thought you were just making a balanced observation rather than an ad hominem argument.

I agree there are levels of bias. I just think it's always there.

I had, thankfully(?) never heard of NewsMax before. It looks rather right wing from a brief glance. I think you're right, too, that some outlets qualify as 'absolute bullshitters'.

Does this then take us to a distinction between bias and, for want of a better phrase, 'fake news'?

The Economist and the Guardian can be very subtle about their biases (and bullshit) but it is always there.

The Guardian, for instance, appears to be quite progressive but except for a few columnists it could be my least favourite paper because in fact it's (neo)liberal. It uses it's progressive appearance to lure in readers with the right ideas about e.g. immigration or healthcare. But it fundamentally agrees with markets, competition, etc, rarely if ever presenting challenges to those assumptions.

And then when there's a possibility of change, it frames the change-maker as unreasonable, a hopeless dreamer, or wholly unhinged. An example of this came up here last week, maybe. The Guardian was praising a move in India(?) to provide free broadband to millions of people. This was a policy of Jeremy Corbyn. It was branded broadband communism (not by the Guardian). Then the Guardian's editorial line was to join all other mainstream media in sabotaging Corbyn's election. It only supports progressive politics until there's a chance of implementing them.

The Economist is unashamedly liberal, too. At the moment it's neoliberal, often quite Hayekian. I don't read it regularly but I used to and I can't remember ever reading a good faith story that involved anything connected to communism or socialism (including democratic socialism). Any positive thing to say about China, for example, has to be wrapped up as a back-handed compliment, at best.

I wouldn't say this is necessarily willful misinformation by their writers (who are often young graduates and unattributed). But those writers wouldn't be hired if they had any other politics. They are hired because they have the same biases as the owners. And if they don't, they've learned to keep their own politics to themselves.

A great book on media bias is Flat Earth News by Nick Davies. It's gripping and easy to read. The structure of news media production means it cannot be anything but biased, although again in agreement with you, this does depend on what we mean by bias and what by outright lies.