Tevi Troy‘s latest column for Conservative Home delves into the reasons President Obama was unable to rely on the old Clinton playbook to beat Republicans during the debt-limit debate. One of Troy’s conclusions? Liberal media bias played a smaller role during this year’s skirmish:

I noted that the change in the media over just the last decade and a half had given Republicans new outlets for getting across their message, and the Republicans made the most of these outlets. Tools like search engines, YouTube, and social media have leveled the playing field and improve Republicans’ ability to disseminate their message. In the previous budgets showdowns, Republicans fought an uphill battle against media bias. This time, Republicans still had to deal with media bias, but they also had sympathetic outlets on cable, in print, on the web, and over the airwaves that did not exist previously.

Furthermore, the Internet helped keep the media honest. Republicans may not always agree with the decisions of a “neutral” judging site like PolitiFact, but PolitiFact judgments will call Democrats out for mis-statements along with Republicans. In the debt ceiling debate, for example, Politifact found that Obama’s statement that “a ‘clear majority’ of Republican voters think tax revenues should be included as part of a budget deal” was mostly false; that Harry Reid’s claim that the U.S. lost 8 million jobs during George W. Bush’s years in office deserved a “pants on fire,” as did Nancy Pelosi’s chart minimizing the Obama administration’s role in national debt accumulation; and that Obama earned a Full Flop on the Flip-O-Meter for having switched positions on raising the debt limit.

This useful service, coupled with the growth of ombudsmen at such previously impregnable institutions such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as legions of bloggers flyspecking every word from politicians and reporters alike, helped change the media equation for Republicans. These factors do not eliminate media bias, but they sure make it harder for media to get away unchallenged with obvious displays of bias.