Unfortunately, this is very primitive thinking.

As someone above pointed out, yes, reporters run liberal. But media owners and advertisers lean right, often very far so. If you were right about money being the driver, then the right is going to win.

Unfortunately, people forget something that happened in the later part of the 20th century: news changed from being a public service expected to run it a loss to a cash cow expected to run a profit.

When people long for the days of calm, intelligent reporting, that's what they're thinking about - but most of them don't realize it. What today's media environment has proved is that calm, rational reporting equals bankruptcy.

As usual, the fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves. Blaming the media for behaving in a way that's rewarded reminds me of that old lyric, "when you point your finger 'cause your plans fell through, you've got three more fingers pointing back at you."


Also, there seems to be a real disconnect between honest and accurate reporting vs. balanced reporting. Balanced is what they tried to do in 2016: every time some crazy Trump story broke, they would try to find something they could pin on Hillary to stay "balanced." She was hammered with the same few (and never proven) "scandals," while he spread the wealth around so it all just turned into a background buzz of craziness.

I would like to see factual reporting. But if we're going to talk about lies by politicians, then of every 10 stories, 9 of them will be about Trump. Because, you know, he lies all the time, even when the truth would do.

How much of what he ever says in one of his rallies is actually factually provably true? Half? Less?

Instead what happens is that right wing groups organize attacks on media they see as not being balanced, and the conservative owners and advertisers hate that.

Also, I really cannot stand the discussion around censorship in our society. There has been a thousands of years long campaign of censorship and cancellation - by conservative Christians. And if you go talk to a librarian today, they will tell you that most of the efforts to pull books from the shelves are still coming from those same people. Every now and again someone says something heinous and has to go away. Every now and again something not heinous catches on and snowballs out of proportion - which would do as a capsule definition of the Internet.

Claiming that somehow liberals are the heart and soul of censorship is to be blind to both history and the present.

Also, a personal pet peeve: the definition of rights is very tilted. They say gay marriage is gay people seeking special privileges, and religious freedom means the right to stop OTHER people from doing things because they violate your religion. Conservatives are convinced that taking away their right to oppress others is oppression of them.