A Biased Market - article

There was an interesting article in last week's Economist about bias in the news media. I've always found this an interesting topic, especially during the most recent election. The article maintains that 'slant' is influenced by reader/user preferences, but not by owner/employee preferences. They further say that the 'slant' is such that it optimizes profits.

The method they used to determine slant was really interesting. They identified 'Republican' and 'Democratic' phrases to distinguish. For example, 'death tax' versus 'estate tax' or 'pro-life' versus 'pro-choice'.

As for the premise, I don't feel convinced. The real world is imperfect, and why are we to believe that the current state has optimized revenues? Clearly print media, especially newspapers are having a difficult time recently - are they truly maximizing profits (by minimizing losses)?

I would have liked to have seen more of the data to put some of my questions to rest.