Why Broadcast Journalism is Unnecessary and Illegitimate

The framers of our Constitution gave carte blance protection to “speech” and “the press”. They did not grant that anyone was then in possession of complete and unalloyed truth, and it was impossible that they should be able to a priori institutionalize the truth of a future such human paragon even if she/he/it were to arrive.

At the time of the framing, the 1830s advent of mass marketing was in the distant future. Since that era, journalism has positioned itself as the embodiment of nonpartisan truth-telling, and used its enormous propaganda power to make the burden of proof of any “bias” essentially infinite. If somehow you nail them dead to rights in consistent tendentiousness, they will merely shrug and change the subject. And the press is protected by the First Amendment. That is where conservatives have always been stuck.

And make no mistake, conservatives are right to think that journalism is their opponent. Examples abound so that any conservative must scratch his/her head and ask “Why?” Why do those whose job it is to tell the truth tell it so tendentiously, and even lie? The answer is bound and gagged, and lying on your doorstep in plain sight. The money in the business of journalism is in entertainment, not truth. It is that imperative to entertain which produces the perspective of journalism.

And that journalism does indeed have a perspective is demonstrated every day in what it considers a good news story, and what is no news story at all. Part of that perspective is that news must be new--fresh today--as if the events of every new day were of equal importance with the events of all other days. So journalism is superficial. Journalism is negative as well, because the bad news is best suited to keep the audience from daring to ignore the news. Those two characteristics predominate in the perspective of journalism.

But how is that related to political bias? Since superficiality and negativity are anthema to conservatives there is inherent conflict between journalism and conservatism.. By contrast, and whatever pious intentions the journalist might have, political liberalism simply aligns itself with whatever journalism deems a “good story.” Journalists would have to work to create differences between journalism and liberalism, and simply lack any motive to do so. Indeed, the echo chamber of political “liberalism” aids the journalist--and since liberalism consistently exacerbates the issues it addresses, successful liberal politicians make plenty of bad news to report.

The First Amendment which protects the expression of opinion must also be understood to protect claims by people of infallibility--and to forbid claims of infallibility to be made by the government. What, after all, is the point of elections if the government is infallible? Clearly the free criticism of the government is at the heart of freedom of speech and press. Freedom, that is, of communication.

By formatting the bands and standardizing the bandwiths the government actually created broadcasting as we know it. The FCC regulates broadcasting--licensing a handful of priveledged people to broadcast at different frequency bands in particular locations. That is something not contemplated in the First Amendment, and which should never pass constitutional muster if applied to the literal press. Not only so, but the FCC requires application for renewal on the basis that a licensee broadcaster is “operating in the public interest as a public trustee.” That is a breathtaking departure from the First Amendment.

No one questions the political power of broadcasting; the broadcasters themselves obviously sell that viewpoint when they are taking money for political advertising. What does it mean, therefore, when the government (FCC) creates a political venue which transcends the literal press? And what does it mean when the government excludes you and me--and almost everyone else--from that venue in favor of a few priviledged licensees? And what does it mean when the government maintains the right to pull the license of anyone it does allow to participate in that venue? It means a government far outside its First Amendment limits. When it comes to broadcasting and the FCC, clearly the First Amendment has nothing to do with the case.

The problem of journalism’s control of the venue of argument would be ameliorated if we could get them into court. In front of SCOTUS they would not be permitted to use their mighty megaphones. And to get to court all it takes is the filing of a civil suit. A lawsuit must be filed against broadcast journalism, naming not only the broadcast licensees, but the FCC.

We saw the tendency of broadcast journalism in the past election, when the delay in calling any given State for Bush was out of all proportion to the delay in calling a state for Gore, the margin of victory being similar--and, most notoriously, the state of Florida was wrongly called for Gore in time to suppress legal voting in the Central Time Zone portion of the state, to the detriment of Bush and very nearly turning the election. That was electioneering over the regulated airwaves on election day, quite on a par with the impact that illegal electioneering inside a polling place would have. It was an enormous tort.

And it is on that basis that someone should sue the socks off the FCC and all of broadcast journalism.

Journalism has a simbiotic relation with liberal Democrat politicians, journalists and liberal politicians are interchangable parts. Print journalism is only part of the press (which also includes books and magazines and, it should be argued, the internet), and broadcast journalism is no part of the press at all. Liberals never take issue with the perspective of journalism, so liberal politicians and journalists are interchangable parts. The FCC compromises my ability to compete in the marketplace of ideas by giving preferential access addresses to broadcasters, thus advantaging its licensees over me. And broadcast journalism, with the imprimatur of the government, casts a long shadow over elections. Its role in our political life is illegitimate.

The First Amendment, far from guaranteeing that journalism will be the truth, protects your right to speak and print your fallible opinion. Appeal to the First Amendment is appeal to the right to be, by the government or anyone else’s lights, wrong. A claim of objectivity has nothing to do with the case; we all think our own opinions are right.

When the Constitution was written communication from one end of the country to the othe could take weeks. Our republic is designed to work admirably if most of the electorate is not up to date on every cause celebre. Leave aside traffic and weather, and broadcast journalism essentially never tells you anything that you need to know on a real-time basis.

The money in the business of journalism is in entertainment, not truth. It is that imperative to entertain which produces the perspective of journalism.

I like to think that, after almost six years, the replies on [this thread] are closing in on some reasonably satisfactory answers.

I will try to get to the replies but I did read your article and I have to say it didn’t jibe with my instincts. The journalism as entertainment angle. Right off, I asked myself after reading it, if I were to rate print, tv and talk radio in order of entertainment value, print media is the least entertaining yet the most liberal. How would you answer that?

I instantly grant that I do not find journalism to be nearly as entertaining now as I once did. My daughter was stunned to learn that I used to listen to News Radio -
"You give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world!"
But of course, that is not what you actually get. My daughter was stunned to learn that I used to listen to that drivel because for almost all her life I she has seen me treat "The News" like an ad for a product I wouldn't buy on a bet.
But more directly on point, consider the "News" dictum, "'Man Bites Dog,' not 'Dog Bites Man.'" The journalist (and the "liberal," who by journalistic convention is merely someone who, having no higher principle, reliably goes along and gets along with journalists) will tell you that journalists "objectively" apply that rule in deciding what stories they will emphasize. But what is that rule about? Will it inform the journalist that there is a rabid dog biting people, and the public must be warned? Au contraire! What it does is tell the journalist that dogs do bite people fairly regularly - and a headline announcing just one more case of a common occurrence will not succeed in attracting the reader's attention.
Now, as noted above, it's possible that the public interest requires that the public be warned about the dog - but the public interest may not be what interests the public. Indeed I would go so far as to assert that that is the normal state of affairs - that, for example, stories about Anna Nicole Smith (may she rest in peace) actually convey next to nothing relevant to the public interest.
I will make my case even stronger. The interest of journalism is to interest and impress the public. But journalism doesn't do things, it only talks. Therefore journalism exists to promote talk above action. And the easiest way to do that is to second guess the people who do do things. That would include businessmen, and a proclivity to second guess businessmen certainly matches up with the "liberal" mindset. Indeed, socialism is simply the setting up of authorities over businessmen whose credential is that they are good at criticizing businessmen and that they have no experience in actually doing business. But the military and the police also do things, and guess what - the fact that the military and the police are sine qua non essentials to the government that "liberals" supposedly love does not protect them from merciless second guessing by journalists, and by "liberal" fellow travelers thereof.
Again, consider the journalism rule that "you always make your deadline." Deadline pressure ineluctably causes reporters and editors to put out stories which actually deserve further investigation, or which actually do not deserve the attention which the journalists give them. Deadline pressure is a tendency of journalism toward superficiality. And the deadline is nothing more or less than the show business dictum, "The show must go on." Entertainment.
The Fairness Doctrine: A Brief History and Perspective

Would you go around quoting Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite?

No more than I would quote any media hack, Limbaugh included.

You begin to see the light!!!

You place yourself on a plane above all the "hacks." It is well to aspire to superior analysis of facts and logic - but IMHO arguing from the assumption of one's own superiority is precisely what is wrong with "liberalism"/"objective journalism." Indeed, the word "sophistry" derives from the Greek word for "wisdom," and it is a negative word precisely because the Sophists argued from the assumption that they were wise and their adversaries were not wise (which naturally annoyed their adversaries).
Theodore Roosevelt's "Man in the Arena" speech is IMHO opposite:
There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities - all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves in their own weakness. The rôle is easy; there is none easier, save only the rôle of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds . . .
I do see a difference between Rush and the "objective journalists," and it is precisely that (although he jokingly makes mock-heroic bombastic declamations to the contrary) Rush does not argue from the assumption that he is right. He undertakes to cite facts and logic to prove that he is right. The difference between Rush and an "objective journalist" is that Rush if philosophical (philo = "love of", "soph = "wisdom") in approach, and the very claim of journalists to objectivity marks them as sophists.

The Holy Order of the Sky Is Falling

. . . is the natural condition of a unified Big Journalism establishment. Journalism doesn't do anything, it only tries to attract attention and impress people with big talk. So naturally journalists will promote anyone who criticizes people who actually get things done. And the environmental movement is simply a reactionary criticism of the people who provide our SUVs and our gasoline. Hey, it's a lot easier than organizing efficient production of vehicles, or figuring out where there is oil . . .

"It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena - Theodore Roosevelt
The (il)logical conclusion of promoting criticism of anyone who does anything essential is to put critics - people who have zero track record of getting anything done - in charge of the economy. It's called "socialism" and, oddly enough </sarcasm>, it doesn't result in efficient production of anything but criticism and scapegoating. >

It seems we have progressed from the Founders' original intent to have a citizen legislature that would periodically return home after a short stint at writing law (presumably to live under that same law) to a class of professional lawmakers who have absolutely no intention of ever living under the very laws they wrote. Those laws are only for their subjects (called "constituents"). Being for the most part lawyers, Congresspeople have no skill in creating anything. They can only write law empowering themselves and extorting money from and otherwise hampering legitimate businesses.

The media mob (as Milhous has recently dubbed them) has appointed itself as the mouthpiece of these people. Their goal is to cheer on the efforts of the "leaders" to build a state completely controlled by the elite, and to put themselves into the position of speaking for their party (a la Pravda). Then they won't have to worry about profit or entertainment; they will have permanent jobs. Only the other day an article was posted on here where a journalism major posited that if newspapers could not survive as a business, why then it was the job of the government to support journalism all the same, out of your tax money.

Read the portion of the Gulag Archepelago where Solzenitzen talks about how the pre-Soviet media fawned over the leftist revolutionaries in jail, trumpeted their ideas and wailed about their conditions in prison. But Lenin turned on the media mob immediately after taking power, and their comrades buried their dead bodies in the northern island prison cemeteries where they had been shot like criminals. I suppose he had no reason to trust them, either. Presumably the same happened to the Chinese, Cuban, and Cambodian media as well.

It seems history isn't necessarily the strong suit of journalists, whether print or electronic.

Being for the most part lawyers, Congresspeople have no skill in creating anything. They can only write law empowering themselves and extorting money from and otherwise hampering legitimate businesses. The media mob (as Milhous has recently dubbed them) has appointed itself as the mouthpiece of these people.

Doesn't it strike you that journalists are precisely like lawyers in having no physical product, and no service other than criticizing the people (businessmen, policemen, and military) who get necessary things done? IMHO the question is not, "Why do journalists help 'liberals'?" The question is why we are surprised that journalists promote themselves by tearing down others, and why we are surprised when the people called 'liberals' do the same thing and, being useful to and simpatico with journalists, get helpful coverage from journalists (including positive labels such as 'progressive' and, yes, 'liberal').

Their goal is to cheer on the efforts of the "leaders" to build a state completely controlled by the elite, and to put themselves into the position of speaking for their party (a la Pravda). Then they won't have to worry about profit or entertainment; they will have permanent jobs. Only the other day an article was posted on here where a journalism major posited that if newspapers could not survive as a business, why then it was the job of the government to support journalism all the same, out of your tax money.

There is no doubt at all that both 'objective journalists' and 'liberals' have identical mindsets, and differ only in that 'objective journalists' are employed as reporters/editors. And that McCain-Feingold - indeed, that all "Campaign Finance Reform" legislation, promotes journalism as a public good, and were pushed by journalists far more than by the general public. The FCC likewise has a history of promoting journalism as a public good, as evidence that a licensee is "broadcasting in the public interest as a public trustee." So there is absolutely no cause for surprise when a journalist proposes government subsidies for journalism - indeed, what are PBS and NPR newscasts if not government-subsidized journalism?
In that light, the "Fairness Doctrine" was regulation of broadcasting in the interests of 'objective journalism' - what could be more in the interests of "objective" journalists than suppressing Rush and the others who call them out for their tendentiousness? What could be more convenient for journalists than having the government prejudge all issues in favor of journalists by defining them as being "objective"?
I lately have become interested in the Associated Press as a transforming agent in American journalism. In the founding era, journalism was openly partisan; Hamilton and Jefferson sponsored papers in which to wage their partisan battles against each other. Now journalists think that a scandal. I, OTOH, think it a scandal that now journalism speaks with a single voice - and I wonder if the AP and the newswire is not the homogenizing force which made that transformation possible/inevitable?
Have you checked this out?

Beauty pageants are "football games" for gals.
You might think that guys would like them, but that's not the way it works; the contestants are competing not at stunning the guys but at impressing the judges (who will not be Joe Sixpack and will probably be women journalist/celebrity types) that they would stun Joe Sixpack if that was what they were trying to do.
And the interview part of the contest is the most extreme example of the difference. The interview is not an intellectual contest. To the contrary it is a Political Correctness contest. The challenge is to come up with the safest answer. If the question is about failure of teens to know something simple, the answer it is that "Class sizes are too big, and teachers aren't paid enough." The entire Democratic Party, and most importantly all journalists, will adopt you as their sweetheart. And therefore the judges will swoon.
. . . and make no mistake - by design, the televised "Great Debates" resemble nothing so much as beauty pageants. They are structured by and for journalists, and therefore are designed to pressure the "contestants" to express PC sentiments.
Which is, of course, a game at which a Democrat can always beat a Republican.

Journalists are supposed to be objective, but they are heavily biased in favor of controlling the power of PR. Republicans are supposed to help those who would rather work than be poor - but they are biased in favor of getting good PR.
Democrats are supposed to favor the poor and the downtrodden. In other words, they make sure to do nothing which would compromise their ability to get good PR.

I believe that most who adhere to global warming are merely substituting it for God.

I think the problem is more general than just "most who adhere to global warming." I think that the newswire - AP - functions as an oracle for liberals. If it's not "on the wire", goes the rationale, then it doesn't matter. My tagline puts it a little differently, but it comes to the same thing.
If you think what is not on the wire - at any given time, that would include

the Bible.
encyclopedias,
the whole of the Library of Congress, save only for the newspapers/news magazines (if it has those).
everything that went as expected yesterday.
Journalists treat the wire, which has everything bad and everything abnormal - to the near-perfect exclusion of anything qualifying for our attention under Philipians 4:8 - as their Oracle. And then people wonder why journalists aren't conservative . . .
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. - Philipians 4:8 (KJV)

The point remains: Democratic sexual indiscretions are OK while Republicans' are not. This double standard should not exist in a media that is as fair as it pretends to be.

. . . raising the obvious question as to why anyone would take for granted that "the media" (sic) "is as fair as it pretends to be."
Notice if you will, Gentle Reader, that "media" is a plural noun. Yet it is no accident that the above sentence treats "the media" as a singular entity. We are after all discussing journalism, not publishing/broadcasting "media" in general. Granted that the other entertainment genres ("other" used advisedly) predictably will conform to the topical nonfiction genre known as "journalism."
My point is that although it consists of many nominally independent outlets (ABC News, The New York Times, etc) journalism is so homogeneous that it is proper to speak of "them" as a singular entity. Just as the famously competitive New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are part of "Major League Baseball" which promotes, and hires the umpires for, their contests. In a similar vein, journalism is all part of the Associated Press, and treats the newswire as their very own Oracle of Delphi.
So journalism is in a very real sense a singular entity with a singular interest - the promotion of journalism. In a usage which is so commonplace as to be scarcely noticed, journalism styles itself "the press" - as if under the First Amendment other genres of nonfiction and even of fiction were not part of "the press," and as if government-licensed broadcast journalism were.
Journalism has the motive and the opportunity to promote itself, and in some ways it does so openly - as with the self-hype of its various organs. But the main way journalism promotes journalism as such, independent of any particular organ, is in the basic rules which all the various organs adhere to. Famously, "If it bleeds, it leads," "'Man Bites Dog' not 'Dog Bites Man'," and "Always make your deadline." And less openly, "Thou shalt not question the objectivity of a fellow journalist." The rules of journalism promote the public image of journalism as "objective" but they do not in fact promote objectivity itself. In fact, self-hype and self aggrandizement are the very definition of subjectivity, not related to objectivity at all. "Objective journalism" is shameless in its self-promotion.
What effect would that have on politics? Quite simply, if you want good PR - and what kind of a politician would not? - then you have to get it from what is effectively a PR monopoly. And the temptation to trim your belief in what constitutes the public good to suit that monopoly is omnipresent. So the obvious question is, "Who panders to the PR establishment the most?" And the answer, just as obvious, is,

"Who gets the best PR for the worst objective performance?"

"Who gets credit for being for the little guy no matter how predominantly wealthy they are, while their opponents are criticized for favoring the rich?"

"Who can openly flout convention, when their opponents are pilloried mercilessly if they are even in morally ambiguous circumstances?"

"Who can flip-flop on significant issues and be credited with 'good intentions' while their opponents get second guessed even when they are steadfast in their positions?"
Not only are Democrats indisputably the ones who pander most for PR, they generally have no other principle but to go for PR.
Larry Craig and Abuse of Power--By the Media
NewsBusters.org ^ | Matthew Sheffield

there always seems to be enough dirt in a politician's background to make that charge plausible.

People, emphatically including Rush Limbaugh, rant about the lack of courage of conservatives to confront liberals. But the problem is not merely lack of courage so much as it is lack of understanding of the real source of the strength of "liberalism."
The source of the strength of liberalism resides, essentially exclusively, in the acceptance by the people of the assumption that journalism is objective. That assumption is baseless. In the founding era, newspapers were openly partisan. They also tended to localism, since they had no independent means of obtaining regional and national and international news. But think of what it meant that the papers were openly partisan. Jefferson and Hamilton each sponsored a newspaper to support their own policies and trash the other's policies. There really was little to choose between those newspapers and party propaganda organs.
Fast forward to the era of the penny press and the telegraph, and newspapers had different market conditions. They had the technology to acquire news from the nation and indeed the world, and they - and their competitors - had high-speed presses with a large bandwidth to sell. But no individual newspaper could afford to operate a national and international news gathering and distribution operation - so they joined forces in the Associated Press.
The AP obviously had enormous clout in its ability to talk to the entire nation. So it had to protest its objectivity, and affect to be objective. And from that acorn the mighty oak tree of "journalistic objectivity" has sprung. Not from any rational reason why it should be believed, but merely from raw propaganda power of men desperate to promote it. And a public faced with the novelty of the situation, which wanted to believe it could buy "the world" of "what was going on" for a penny.
All the propaganda can be countered with a few simple points:

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 . . .
It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. - Adam Smith

Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin Franklin
and,

"It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena - Theodore Roosevelt

The first quotation makes the point that the claim of "journalistic objectivity" certainly requires proof.
The second quotation makes the point that such proof would have to demonstrate not merely that journalistic reports were consistently true, but that they constituted a full telling of the truth.
And the third quotation makes the point that the portion of the truth which journalism in fact elects to tell emphasizes the failings of people upon whom the public relies to get things done. And that, in criticizing and second guessing the corporations, the military, and the police, journalism "objectively" promotes the governmentism which it pleases so-called "objective journalism" to call "liberalism" or "progressivism" - and that "liberalism" or "progressivism" opposes both liberty and progress.
Out-of-wedlock births have to be talked about
Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | 9/4/07 | Jim Wooten

Oh, Clinton’s book is also helped by the fact that Dungy’s sales at Christian bookstores don’t even count toward the NY Time’s list. It made it to No. 1 without counting one sale at a Christian store.

Gentle Reader, reflect on that for a moment. Here is journalism at its most characteristic: The New York Times is systematically turning a blind eye toward books which most reflect American culture.
Why do they do that? Because journalism specializes in superficiality. People who don't want to emphasize the superficial and downplay the classic, do not want to spend their lives as journalists.
Clinton Calls out Bleeding Heart Cheapskates
Publishers Weekly ^ | September 4, 2007 | Lynn Andriani

FEC Resolved Two Matters Involving Internet Activity
Federal Election Commission ^ | 09-08-2007 | FEC

To: Amerigomag; conservatism_IS_compassion

FEC ruling shoves Old Media & Bi-partisan elites back in their place by affirming the people's own 1st Amendment right to freedom of the press

Everything you learned in school about freedom of the press was wrong. The American nation has swallowed the un-American notion that the First Amendment's call for freedom of the press actually granted special rights to a special group of people called "the press." How could that possibly be, given that the country was founded on the belief that there were no "special" people and everyone had the same rights? Moreover, the First Amendment was written at a time when there were no journalists as we think of them now - a time when newspapers were produced mostly in one-man shops by "printers" (not "reporters," "journalists," "columnists," or "editors"), 30 years before the country even had its first full-time reporter.
The truth is that just as in its preceding phrase, the 1st Amendment granted us all freedom of speech so that we could say what was on our minds, in its correct reading we are also granted "free use of the printing press" so that we can publish what is on our minds. In a letter to Noah Webster, Jefferson referred to this vital need for "“free presses," a usage that makes it clear he was talking about machines and not special people.
And yet, out of either ignorance or malice, Old Media and elites on both sides of the aisle supported the indefensible McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill - a bill which increased their free speech and press rights at the expense of everyone else by banning all broadcast political advocacy advertising mentioning candidates' names within 60 days of a federal election. Thankfully, they were just dealt a crushing blow-back when the FEC affirmed lefty blog DailyKos.com's right to political advocacy, establishing that every blog can say whatever it wants during that crucial 60-day period (see Mary Katharine Ham). In other words, all men are created equal and have the same inalienable rights. Bloggers and journalists, same rights. It's an idea that ought to seem more self-evident than revolutionary.

5 posted on 09/07/2007 2:48:37 AM EDT by Milhous

Excellent post, Milhous (

Pretend the worldwide atrocities don’t exist when the clintons are in power. Report it all in the harshest possible terms if they are not in office. Journalism 101 these days.

Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin Franklin
IOW, truth is necessary but not sufficient to prove lack of bias. The conceit that we are under some sort of obligation to believe the AP is completely without foundation. And as for the conceit that the AP is not only the truth but the whole truth . . . The truly rational response to that is,
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 . . .
It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. - Adam Smith
This whole "objective journalism" shtick is a product of the Associated Press news monopoly which is a result of the telegraph as an instantaneous transmission system with a low bandwidth (Sound familiar? Broadcasting censorship by the FCC is justified on the basis of "scarcity of bandwidth").
The AP was so obviously a monopoly that it needed a cover story, and that story was that the AP was objective.

Donor, After Missing California Court Date, Is Found Ill on Train in Colorado
NY Times | September 8, 2007 | ROBERT D. McFADDEN

isn't there any time to give the MSM a break? Is -everything- they do bad? I mean in this case...if the media did only what the customers demanded, all we'd have is "Entertainment Tonight" and "Greta"/Anna Nicole Smith.

"Isn't there time to give Hitler a break? Was everything he did evil? I mean, he really loved dogs, and he wanted his country to be rich and strong . . ." </sarcasm>
The issue is not that "the media" do nothing at all right, the issue is that even when their reports are accurate they can and do mislead. After all,
Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin Franklin
That being the case, merely proving that their reports are mostly not totally inaccurate (tho I have the distinct impression that the closer you are to a story, the less impressed you will be by the newspaper's telling of it) is not enough. You have to consider the portion of the truth which Big Journalism does not tell.
If you saw a disembodied text on your computer screen with no identification of its source, how hard would it be to tell if it was from a newspaper or if it was from an encyclopedia? Not very. How would you know it was from a newspaper? First because the topic would be very current, and some of the facts of the story wouldn't be in yet; you don't know fully how things come out "in the end." Secondly, the story would more likely to be sensational and overblown, and much less likely to be of enduring significance. Lastly, the implication of the story is much more likely to be that the people who took action - and who thereby took the risk that they were doing less that a perfect job - should have done better.
The bottom line is that journalists promote journalism by second guessing people who get things done instead of only criticizing success. It is irrational to suppose that journalists are objective; the opposite of objective would be subjective, and subjective means to be unaware of how your own interests color your opinions. And that is exactly how journalists behave when they claim objectivity while adhering to rules of best practice which are designed to interest the public for the good of his employer and not to promote the public interest.
Journalists promote themselves and they promote everyone else who promotes second guessing over action. Their pecking order puts themselves and other journalists at the top (as being "objective"), and places people with the same attitudes as journalists on the next rung down with positive labels such as "liberal" and "progressive." A "liberal" George Stephanopolis became an "objective" reporter by the mere changing of jobs from operative for Clinton Administration. And Walter Cronkite went from "objective" journalist to "liberal" analyst simply by going the other way, without the slightest change in the underlying philosophy of either man. And on the bottom of their pecking order, of course, is the "right wing" "conservative" "Cold Warrior" (the last of those denigrating labels, of course, abruptly went out of fashion with the collapse of the Soviet Union).
So by all means let's cut journalism some slack, and I hereby do: their overall accuracy is no worse on average than that of a stopped clock.
The Latest News Headlines—Your Vote Counts (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)
Project for Excellence in Journalism ^ | September 12 2007

I often wonder if there wouldn't be overwhelming positive changes if the "Fouth Estate" were required to be non-profit. (Churches serve many important functions, and yet must be non-profit.) The profit motive for the major news outlets is their greatest problem, so why not remove it? The zealous types will still be there, but the truth-bending sensationalism will mostly disappear. Seems like it might be worth a shot, anyway.

Actually the profit motive is not the sum total of the motivation for journalism. They are yielding to the temptation not only to make money instead of serving the public, they are yielding to the temptation of power. The power to elevate your own importance by denigrating everyone else. No, the only way to mitigate the pernicious influence of journalism is for the public to recognize the limitations of the genre. And to understand that if someone claims objectivity that is proof of their subjectivity.

This is just a symptom. The underlying reality is that Democrats protect their miscreants because they can, and Republicans do not because they cannot get away with it.
And what determines who can get away with what in politics? "Objective" journalism, of course. And why do "objective" journalists who go pedal-to-the-metal on any allegation of Republican soft-pedal allegations of Democratic malfeasance? Because the business of journalism is

self-promotion,
promotion of those who support your own self-promotion, and
demotion of the reputations of anyone else.
That is why journalists call themselves and their colleagues "objective" with no basis in fact.
That is why journalists call others who promote criticism of the productive (but who don't have jobs in journalism) "liberal" or "progressive" (or whatever positive label they prefer).
And that is why journalists bushwhack and second guess businessmen, the military, and the police. And why journalists call anyone who thinks that
"It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena - Theodore Roosevelt
"partisan" or "conservative" or "right wing." With no basis in fact.
Humphrey: Two parties differ on handling scandals
Knoxville News Sentinel ^ | 9/16/7 | Tom Humphrey

the media makes this a kind of popularity contest that has little to do with policy, leadership ability, management style or intellect. It’s about who can sling the most mud and make it stick. It’s entertainment, not seriousness. I doubt people are really thinking about what they’re going to get with their vote, otherwise we wouldn’t have had to suffer though the last Clinton administration.

The newspaper deadline is simply a version of "The show must go on." And the editor's rules, "If it bleeds, it leads," and "Man Bites Dog, not 'Dog Bites Man'" are also entertainment rules having no justification in respect to public policy issues. In fact the best way I've found to summarize what journalism is is by reference to what it is not. And what it is not, is an encyclopedia or a bible. Nor even a nonfiction book.
And that is the way to characterize the perspective of journalism - in comparison to the things that journalism systematically avoids, journalism is superficial. And to claim superior objectivity when you are actually systematically and for self-interested reasons purposefully superficial is also to be arrogant.

Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin Franklin
Consequently, even proof that journalism was always accurate (snort!) would not constitute proof of objectivity.
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 . . .
It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. - Adam Smith
The Contest For the Republican Presidential Nomination [Why Fred Thompson has a real chance to win] Rasmussen Reports ^ | September 19, 2007 | Douglas Schoen

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