I make no doubt. What has to happen in America is a lawsuit demanding that the NY Times v. Sullivan rule be overturned.It makes it hard for public figures to sue for libel. But that the ruling is “fair” is predicated on the assumption that there is ideological competition in journalism. Critics of “the MSM” know that to be untrue, but have had a hard time articulating an irrefutable argument against it. The answer is IMHO bound and gagged and lying on our doorstep. The Associated Press (and its membership, taken together) constitute a monopoly in blatant violation of The Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890).
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776)The AP “wire” is a virtual meeting of all major US journalism - and it has been in continuous operation since before the Civil War.The “conspiracy against the public” is the promotion of the fatuous conceit that journalism (AP journalism) is objective. Nobody can know that they are unbiased, whether or not they are in a mutual admiration society which assures them that they are. It takes effort even to attempt objectivity - and that effort must start from the assumption that you might likely be biased. Starting from the contrary assumption that you are unbiased simply proves that you are not even trying to be objective.
Worse, journalists are negative and they know it. They are all taught that , for commercial reasons, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Thus, the idea that journalism is objective amounts to the conceit that negativity is objectivity - amounts, IOW, to cynicism. Journalism is cynical about society, but naive towards government (after all, any criticism of society naturally raises the idea that “there oughta be a law”). That combination of cynicism and naiveté contrasts with the attitude of the conservative, who is skeptical enough of society to accept the (regretable) need for government - and skeptical of government because it is expensive and dangerous. It is for that reason that journalists are, to a conservative, indistinguishable from other socialists.
But to the point of the Stylebook, any politically tendentious rule in it (such as requiring that illegal aliens not be called “illegal aliens”) can be called an element of “conspiracy against the public” because after all, illegal aliens are illegal aliens.