Your right about conservative dogma and the planned strategic attacks by the Republican party.     I'd say that's mostly true, but only half of the story.    Democratic professional manipulators have tried to do the same thing, although apparently not as well for the last decade.

Bias doesn't always show in blatant lies (although that clearly works for some people), but sometimes is in not telling the full truth about your own support group.   It's true of Fox and it's true at MSNBC.   Different styles both heavily partisan and biased.   

The only choice for balance is to watch both or, not watch either.    I started with both, now I'm back to neither.    I prefer the writen press, the reader is less suseptable to the full basket of tricks available to broadcast media.   No dramatic music, no smiling or smearking faces, no dramatic music or plastic fantastic staging...    Reading takes more effort but is generaly far more filling.   I'm probably a dinosaur.