Shakes here...
In Ezra's earlier post, Good Night, and Good Luck, he references:
the idea of the news anchor as advocate, the concept that enormously trusted, unelected individuals could be beamed into millions of homes and use their status and reach to shape tomorrow's stories, not just publicize yesterday's tales. That was real bias. But maybe it was better.
I think overt media bias can be better. In much of Europe, for example, there are left-leaning papers, right-leaning papers, and moderate papers, all clearly identified as such; people buy the one that suits them. Americans have the notion that objectivity and accuracy are somehow inextricably linked, but, as we've seen, attempts by the media to appear objective (and, specifically, balanced) have often resulted in giving equal time to opposing positions that aren’t equally credible.
