At the beginning of time.
What ever happened to just reporting on the facts???
It always was an urban legend.
The Internet is the best thing that's ever happened to journalism. It allows instant fact checking and dissemination of opposing interpretations. That will not eliminate bias, irrationality, partisanship, and ideological blinders - that's impossible - but it will allow those so disposed to see reality more clearly.
"What ever happened to just reporting on the facts???"
"It always was an urban legend."
An urban legend and a myth but one the journalism schools and a generation of journalists claimed to adhere to.
There is no 'unbiased' press, never was. The phenomenon has been great marketing by the institutional press in an era when nobody could pull the curtain away to uncover their real work. the patently false claims by the Walter Cronkite's and Sam Donaldson's that their reporting was the 'objective press' now ceases to work, thanks to the internet.
Actually, they are not much different from the yellow press of the past. The New York Times has an agenda as clear as the partisan papers of the 19th century, they just couch it differently.
" The Internet is the best thing that's ever happened to journalism."
Agreed ... but it wasnt the best thing to happen to *journalists*, like Dan Rather.