I don't think that it's arguable that there's bias in the media. When I say "bias" I'm not talking about "spin", or willfully misrepresenting facts, I'm referring more to the below-the-surface inclinations that we all have to emphasize one thing over another, to prioritize what's important and what's not. Decisions have to be made at every newspaper, television and radio station or internet blog about what gets covered and in how much depth. Much was made last week of a CNN employee who gave his opinion that a certain story was being pursued because of ratings. Why would the fact that ratings factor into corporate decisions surprise anyone? If news organizations continually feature content that nobody is interested in, pretty soon they will be defunct news organizations.
I'm not a journalist, nor have I ever been one. I worked for a newspaper for twelve years back in the nineties, but not in a reporting capacity - I was a circulation manager - we made sure that the paper that the reporters and editors worked so hard to put out and the advertising department worked so hard to pay for got delivered to the people who wanted to read it. I knew some reporters back then and know a handful of journalists now, and I don't know any for whom the truth isn't paramount and make an effort to report accurately, overcoming their own personal biases. But what about the big, bad corporations? Sometimes they get it wrong. Sometimes individuals within those corporations act unethically. Sometimes they jump the gun and have to backtrack or retract stories. But for these organizations, their reputation is all important. Their reputation for getting it right. Their reputation for digging up information that those in power are trying to hide, for exposing corruption.
And mostly they do get it right. For all the accusations from the Trumpists that the mainstream media is corrupt, fraudulent and biased, they generally get it right. Pressed, Trumpists usually fail to come up with any concrete examples.
Then there's the term "Fake News". Initially the term referred to bloggers or commentators who literally made up news that they knew was false in order to further an agenda or affect a political race. The term was quickly co-opted by President Trump to describe any news organization that had the temerity to publish stories that painted him in an unflattering light. He escalated to calling out individual news organizations and then individual reporters. On at least one occasion he referred to the mainstream media as "the enemy of the people". As if it wasn't bad enough that a paranoid president, lashing out at his enemies, tweets out conspiracy fantasies, but the legions of Trumpists who automatically disbelieve everything from the mainstream media and reflexively swallow everything that Trump says, indicates the willful ignorance that is infecting this country.
There is a reason that freedom of the press is included in the first amendment. For all the chest beating about The Constitution from the Trumpists, for all that the second amendment is equated with Holy Writ, they don't seem to have much respect for the freedom of the press and the important part that a free and unfettered press plays in maintaining the other freedoms that we hold so dear.
I am not suggesting that we should, without question, believe everything that we see or hear in the media. What I am suggesting is that we shouldn't disbelieve everything either. What we should do is use our reasoning faculties and weigh the evidence. We should stop assuming that every reputable news organization is out to get the President and is willing to lie and invent "facts" in order to make him look bad.
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