Honest Journalists list. (Vanity I guess)

ZERO

Thomas Sowell?

Yes on Catherine Herridge.

I went and looked Walter Williams up, I recognize him but from where I don’t remember. Thanks for recommending him.

After reading this thread I realize there are a few more. Still probably less than 5% of all journalists.

Don’t know of Catherine Herridge, but I don’t have cable tv. A few here are recommending her, I will check her out thanks.

Thanks mrsmith, so few in media are fair concerning Trump. Hannity is on board but he has disappointed on other fronts.

Daniel Greenfield.

Laura Poitras
Glenn Greenwald

And that’s about it

Who do I trust? Jesus. I make a distinction between “journalists” and “commentators,” though:

Journalists “report news.” What they actually do is they report bad news; two famous aphorisms show this. Not only “If it bleeds, it leads,” but (in the context of a people who have a lot to be thankful for) “‘Man Bites Dog,’ not ‘Dog Bites Man.’” Thus, journalists are enthusiastic about bad news in general, and especially so about bad “news” (whether or not exactly true) about someone they public trusts and likes.
In addition, journalists have one other salient feature: they claim that all journalists are objective. Like negativity, that is a business necessity for the journalist, because they trade in reports from far-flung places, written by people they never even met. The Associated Press newswire. Membership in the AP is essential for a major news organization, but it is expensive. To get bang for their buck they must hype the fatuous conceit that journalists are priests of accuracy and representativeness who tell you “What is going on.” This is very attractive to all people; we are very curious by nature.
The story in The Odyssey of Odysseus having himself lashed to the mast to be able to hear the Sirens’ song - and going crazy pleading with his men to disobey his order to ignore him until they were out of hearing of their voices instructs us that we want “to know all” - even if it kills us. Pandora’s Box, same thing. And the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil . . .
Even Adam Smith has something to say on the subject:
The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing.
Smith goes on to note that
The man whom we believe is necessarily, in the things concerning which we believe him, our leader and director, and we look up to him with a certain degree of esteem and respect. But as from admiring other people we come to wish to be admired ourselves; so from being led and directed by other people we learn to wish to become ourselves leaders and directors.
The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of leading and directing other people, seems to be one of the strongest of all our natural desires. - Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
So that is our problem: We are suckers for journalism. By nature. Even if you and I are conservative, and though we pool, here on FR, of our meagre store of “incredulity,” we have trouble adequately discounting "stories which we ourselves are afterwards both ashamed and astonished that we could possibly think of believing.”

Commentators differ from journalism in that a commentator does not claim to be objective. This is an important distinction because claiming objectivity is a character flaw. First because nobody can know that they are objective, so the claim is fatuous at best. And secondly, in the case of journalists (who know perfectly well that they are negative, as discussed above), the effect of claiming that systematically negative reports constitute “objectivity” is to betray the fact that journalists are cynics.

The dirty little secret is that cynicism about (what Thomas Paine called “society”) flyover America, and concomitantly naivete about government are the defining characteristics of socialism.

A commentator may be a socialist, but the niche of socialist commentary is narrow because it is predominantly filled by “objective" journalism. The commentator who is open about the perspective which guides him is nearly always a conservative.

When I hear ‘journalist’, I think of investigative, not TV and/or radio personality or author types so I have a short list:

Catherine Herridge is terrific .... probably top of my list, then Sharyl Attkisson.

There are very few “journalists”. Most are commentators disguised as reporters.

It’s what they’re taught to do in journalism school.