After all of the rush to judgement today against the police officers - with very little unbiased evidence - the news anchors are now pleading with us to not rush judgement against the protestors in Dallas. The media has spent the entire day inciting emotions and now they tell us to not assume anything. This is ridiculous!
I'm trying to stay out of the conversations today mostly because people have become so intolerant recently that I simply don't want to spend my time engaging in these kind of arguments with anonymous online users. That said, as someone in the media, I do want to interject here, because you seem to imply some sort of bias, perhaps in a leftward or, as some ignorantly call it "anti-cop," direction. Warning: a long rant is coming.
First of all, the media does not collude or act as a collective when framing a story (framing just means deciding how the story is covered and presented). If you turn to three different news outlets, you will find three vastly different ways they have presented the story. Yes, the information will be the same, but the way in which it is presented and the explanation of its significance is almost always different. On a grand scale, this lack of collusion would make any collective bias rather difficult. Despite the many studies done to try to determine a political bias in the media, not one has found any evidence of a liberal or conservative bias in the mainstream media (this includes major newspapers, network news, etc...). While you generally do find more liberals in newsrooms today, conservatives are apparent as well, and all stories are reviewed in reputable organizations to make sure they present both sides of the story equally.
That said, I am not suggesting that no bias exists in the media. A common bias of almost all news outlets is an incumbency bias, as they tend to be more critical and inquisitive of the status quo or an incumbent. Another bias is the sensationalist bias, which puts an emphasis on drawn-out drama and making stories flashier. These biases, however, are not decided upon by some massive council of media greats but rather by the consumers, whether they be listeners, readers, or viewers. Because the news business is in fact a business, it is subject to profits and revenue, which are obviously dictated by what and how much people are willing to watch or read. Would Disney's imagineers build a park full of rides that they are felt to be representative of what they wanted in the park or would they build a park filled with attractions themed around IPs that consumers have demonstrated extreme interest in? Many have complained about a certain political candidate receiving an unordinary amount of attention from the media, yet they continue to tune in to hear his every word. If they really want the media to stop with the excess attention, then they need to stop watching. Not saying the media takes the most ethical approach, but ultimately, one must remember news remains a business in this country.
So how does this apply to today's events? Well, the narrative of an African-American being the victim of excessive force has become a very salient and prominent one in the national dialogue for the last two years. Whether you believe that to be the case in this particular instance, the media has begun to "zoom out" from these two events and now see where they fit in that larger narrative or if they're apart of that narrative at all. The same has yet to happen for these officers who were shot in this horrific tragedy. The thing is we don't even have a clear picture of these suspects, let alone an idea of their intentions. Were they protestors? Were they racists? Were they cop-haters? Were they just looking to just seize the moment and chaos for attention? Overnight, the news has to file through the conflicting reports, check for developments, and work with sources to straighten out the story before attempting to figure out where it falls within this larger narrative just like when the two cop shootings of Afircan-Americans broke in local news, they were first gathering all the information they could. Once a clear understanding was acquired, those two stories were "linked" and put into a larger, national narrative. The difference with this shooting in Dallas is that it was national news from the start because it happened at a protest. Some would then ask if the media should be fitting these stories into larger narratives, and I'd argue that fitting that narrative is just as important as reporting the facts. The news sees its two jobs as A) to tell you what happened and B) to tell you why it's important to you. B is really why people watch the rest of the newscast or read the rest of the story. It's how news organizations really make their money. It's also B where you start to see the varying interpretations in the news outlets with some turning to commentators, others to politicians, others to first-hand accounts, others to activists, and others to investigations.
Ultimately, it has become a far too common tactic of politicians (and now people it seems) to dismiss the media as bias when the way a story is reported and/or fitted into a dialogue doesn't meet their preferences. Take the movie Spotlight for example. In 2015/16, everyone praises these journalists as heroes but then forget just how many enemies the Globe made during that investigation. Many thought they were just trying to defame the Church or were sticking their noses into an area they shouldn't. The amount of times they were accused of an atheistic or secular bias is ridiculous. Sometimes these narratives and stories just don't seem to make as much sense until we're further enough away from them that we can see how everything fits together, so before you call the "lame stream media" bias next time, just keep in mind that reporting the news is not as clear cut as it may seem.
Prayers and thoughts to the families of this horrific tragedy and to Dallas. 
