VDH is certainly correct about perspective. It is heartening to consider the difference in treatment between modern historians and the contemporary press hysteria (a very good deal of which is still perfectly accessible) during the U.S. Civil War. One difficulty these days is precisely the same as then - far too many reporters have attempted to craft a narrative on the spot instead of simply stating observed facts. This gives them a vested interest that hinders successive facts that do not fit the narrative. For all the derision that modern journalism tends to direct at "objective" journalism, the latter does at least free the reporter from looking like a complete fool after the shooting stops (and the Pulitzers have been awarded).
Thinking yourself to be objective is arguably the best possible definition of the word "subjectivity." And the Associated Press, and all of those "independent-thinking" papers which make up the AP, are selling something. They are all selling the same thing - news, before you could get it from any other source. So the AP and every one of its members has the identical incentive to sell the idea that journalism - all journalism - is objective. How else to vouch for the news which is the pervasive, dominant theme of your newspaper, quite dwarfing the editorial opinions which give the various newspapers reputations for independence from each other? - That news did not originate with your newspaper's own reporters but with those of a nominal competitor in a distant city. So with the AP, newspapers have the opportunity to claim objectivity without fear of powerful ridicule as long as they do not compete with any other AP newspaper on the basis of objectivity claims. And the more opportunity they have had to make that claim, the less compunction they have felt was necessary about taking care to vindicate the claim by actually being objective.So what is the actual effect of the claim by all of journalism that all of journalism is objective? The actual effect of the claim of objectivity, running as it has for a century and a half, is to establish in custom the idea that journalists are a breed apart from we-the-people. An enormous propaganda campaign has convinced the general public that journalists are more virtuous, more knowledgeable, and more civic-minded - and thus entitled not only to be listened to with respect by people who pay for the privilege. And that journalists are entitled to special privileges such as "shield" laws granting reporters the right to withhold the names of sources from courts of law which any citizen would be under legal compunction to yield up. And that journalists are entitled to special rights to speak out about candidates for public office - rights to be denied, under McCain-Feingold, to we-the-people.
But in principle, if that assumption be accepted, there is no real virtue in having our government officers selected by vote of the whole people on a date certain - it would be far more manageable to simply read in the newspapers what the newspapers say is in the public interest. Or, for that matter, what the newspapers say the public thinks, based on "public opinion polls." From the POV of the journalist - or anyone who thinks that journalists are more objective and hence wiser and more virtuous than the public at large - public votes are unnecessary and irrelevant. What could be more patent than that the conceit of journalistic objectivity is profoundly subversive of democratic principle?