Free Republic

<p>The worst thing that can be said of a serious news organization is that it is cavalier about reporting the truth as it understands it. Gain a reputation for political bias in reports billed as objective and you can be sure to lose the trust--and patronage--of a significant part of your audience. So only a media giant whose shareholders are under lock and key could be as sanguine as the British Broadcasting Corporation's senior management has been after this week's embarrassing revelations.</p>

NEWTON, MA -- A Boston Globe Correspondent who has written hundreds of articles about Newton for the newspaper is no longer allowed to write about the city due to "an apparent conflict of interest" (think Jayson Blaire -- Ed.) Newton conservatives say they have been complaining for three years that writer Gail Spector's work for the Globe's West Weekly section has been biased. But the paper did not take action until last week when editors say they learned that Spector, a Newton Highlands resident and the mother of children attending Newton's Countryside Elementary School, has served on the Countryside School...

<p>The nation's most powerful media organizations share one thing: They're all objective - or at least they say they are. Though everyone who gathers and reports news has his or her personal beliefs and biases, the biggest newspapers and the network news outfits all try to play to the middle. After all, that's where you'll find most readers and viewers.</p>

<p>With the New York Times and the British Broadcasting Corp. both in the soup, something big must be going on in journalism.</p> <p>Let me give you one view of what that is, based on watching my craft evolve over 30 years as a senior editor. I think we're coming to the end of the era of "objectivity" that has dominated journalism over this time. We need to define a new ethic that lends legitimacy to opinion, honestly disclosed and disciplined by some sense of propriety.</p>

<p>The BBC and New York Times scandals show that "objectivity" is dead.</p> <p>With the New York Times and the British Broadcasting Corp. both in the soup, something big must be going on in journalism.</p> <p>Let me give you one view of what that is, based on watching my craft evolve over 30 years as a senior editor. I think we're coming to the end of the era of "objectivity" that has dominated journalism over this time. We need to define a new ethic that lends legitimacy to opinion, honestly disclosed and disciplined by some sense of propriety.</p>

The 20th century is one of wars and dictatorships. It opened with the First World War, during which Communist dictatorship appeared on the European fringe in Russia, and following which Fascist and Nazi dictatorships arose in the heart of Europe. Then came the Second World War and the Cold War. Communist dictatorship spread to Asia, Africa and the Americas (Cuba). Even areas which hadn't arrived at dictatorship were well along the road. They suffered continuous erosion of citizens' rights. We must learn why! We must know the cause to find a cure. History is a record of human actions, and...