I agree. Some other countries (e.g. Mexico, UK) have much richer news media than we do, because they not only have freedom of the press but also diversity of the press.
Rupert Murdoch understood the market value of this, with his international background, and Fox News is the result.
I sympathize with those who think that journalists should strive to be fair and accurate, but it isn’t working out that way. In the US, the journalism profession (especially in academia) is overwhelmingly center-left to hard left. And this is in the mainstream.
But worse than having a “wrong” view is that they are virtually a hive mind – one view prevails. In so many cases, the NYT or WaPo sets the priority of an issue and the acceptable narrative and framing. The rest follow along. This leads to shocking institutionalized bias.
One problem is that the “professionalization” of journalism has resulted in a guild mentality, and in a guild, those who go along with the establishment of the guild do best. They get the awards, the plum jobs. This leads in journalism to a shocking lack of diversity of views, and in some cases, outright censorship and blacklisting.
IMHO, journalists should have education that so that know something real – like science, engineering or law, or other disciplines that are… well… rigorous and require logical thinking. To heck with the J-Schools – they obviously are not doing their job any better than the teacher’s colleges.
