A Lesson on Objectivity in the Press, via the Daily Kos

I'm glad that a Kos contributor wrote this article today on conservatism versus liberalism in the media. His arguments are as follows:

In general, liberals value journalism, or facts, and conservatives value punditry, or opinions. Far-right conservatives are indeed obsessed with the press, because they see the reporting of facts as being inherently "liberal".

...

So-called mainstream journalism attempts, at least, to cleanly separate factual reporting from opinion... But it is, or was, a core tenet of journalism: report the facts, and expose the truth, and leave opinion out of it.

Awesome! This is my point exactly! For most of the world, objectivity is an illusion; the idea that you can completely separate yourself from what you know is impossible. Your bias, whether known or not, influences what you read, how you interpret it, and what you make of what you know. What you should attempt to accomplish in your lifetime is to more fully see and understand your own subjectivity so that you realize its affect on your daily life. Reporters and scientists would have you believe that they have removed all bias from their work; however, due to our understanding above we know this to be impossible; a delusion. Scientist, professors, reporters, and people like me are all influenced by their environment and what they believe. If someone denies this subjectivity, it will be even more pervasive in their work.

The Daily Kos would like people to believe that conservatives don't like journalism in the mainstream media because we believe "news" to be inherently liberal. This is so funny because it ignores that most people in the media are liberally biased. It's not hard to see in the daily editions of the New York Times and the Des Moines Register, and even the AP that whoever is writing the articles isn't exactly seeing the world how I do.

News is, from a number of sources, inherently liberal. From others it is inherently conservative; this isn't exactly a secret here. However, when news sources claim to be "objective" we know this is bogus. If you want a counter to FoxNews, watch CNN. If you want a counter to the Washington Post, read the Washington Times.

Conservatives aren't annoyed by media bias - as I have stated above bias is inherent in all that we do and think. However, people like me get annoyed when news sources claim objectivity when they are far, far, from it. As far as I'm concerned, Fox should change it's name to CNN, and CNN to LNN (if you get my drift). Let's quit this charade of objectivity and call news what it is.

UPDATE: By the way, I know that some people don't think that the AP is biased. Does anyone remember how the AP wrote that Bush supporters booed during a rally during the election when Clinton was announced as ok after his heart surgery? One of the biggest AP bias-proving events in recent memory.