Unearthing duplicity and wrongdoing by the powerful is, or should be, the primary task of journalists.
It used to be but that is no longer the case. Because of the role that they once played, they were called the "Fourth Estate" or the 4th branch of government. We no longer have reporters who report just the facts. They all want to be commentators with their own spin on everything they cover.I think it's more corporate/government spin than personal. It's more like PR than journalism.That is true. The problem arises when they report their views as facts and not opinions. There is no room for personal agendas in honest reporting. A true reporter can separate the two.
Now it's not nice to kick a new born kitten.
I mostly watch the CBC and BBC which tend to be more fact based and they don't do a lot of editorializing. They do that, but outside of the reporting of the news. Of course, you can't control who chooses what stories to cover but I've seen stories reported on the CBC that simply would not be covered by an American network, because it isn't about Lindsay Lohan or doesn't lend itself to 10 second sound bites.
There is no "balance" there is only the truth. This is what journalists all over the globe have forgotten. What we all must remember is that a "half truth" is just a full lie.
The only balance would be in the big picture, where opposing, highly opinionated but fact-laced viewpoints act against each other in an attempt to sway the opinions of viewers. In that way, the main players themselves are not balanced, but they only add to balance by providing opposition. Opinions are not facts, but they can be inferences or conclusions made from facts. To believe one side alone to be "truth" is very naive. A full lie includes no truth at all, but a half-truth does include truth, with the omission of certain unwanted facts (depending on goal) to deceive or sway opinion.
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