From what I understand, the news used to be less biased because there were only four major networks: NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox. Networks wanted to have the largest possible audience. If they expressed an opinion some of their audience disagreed with, they would lose viewers (and, therefore, advertising impressions).

When CNN became the first 24-hour cable news channel, this was the beginning of the end for neutral TV reporting. Pretty soon, we had multiple cable news channels, each catering to one political viewpoint or another.

Since the audience was being split into fragments, there was no longer any reason to be neutral. No matter how neutral a network was, it would still lose some viewers because there were just too many options.

There is really nothing that can be done about this problem except to do what you have suggested: either go to the source or read multiple opinions and try to sift the facts from the arguments.

Alternatively, you can just ignore the news altogether. Most of the time, it doesn't have any bearing on your life anyway. People seem to forget that the news used to be a 1-hour affair at night. Do we really need 24/7 news? I think not.