[MichaelMoser123]

> Democracy is in trouble when people lose faith in the media and independent journalism is suppressed

To what extent is reporting skewed/slanted in the direction of the owners interests? Each media outlet still has an owner, hasn't it?

[omnius19]

Your question is a red herring. Of course the owners of news organizations have biases, as do the reporters, editors, readers, and everyone else in society. Sometimes the bias is political. Sometimes it is sensationalism. Sometimes the writer doesn't like the color blue.

Every reputable news organization follows the journalistic code of ethics that puts institutional barriers in the way to counteract bias. Reputable outlets require multiple sources to corroborate stories before they go to print. They require printed or verbal disclaimers on any story that could pose a conflict of interest for the outlet or author. They require prompt retractions to be printed if an initial story is found to be factually inaccurate in any way.

It's not a perfect system. No system is. Bad articles can still slip through. Some organizations can adhere to it more than others. But it is way better than anything else humans have come up with to keep the news honest. Most journalists take their roles as arbiters of information very seriously and try to keep their biases out of it, even if they are not always completely successful. That is all anyone could reasonably ask.

Instead of labelling all news media as generically biased and therefore not to be trusted, try to understand that all information will have a bias and learn to identify specific incidents of it. Then learn to work around it by reading other sources with different biases, thereby getting the whole picture of a story. It is the news media's job to TRY to be as unbiased as possible. It is the news reader's job to TRY and be as informed as possible by reading varied news from different sources. Neither side will be perfect, as both are full of imperfect human elements, but overall it leads to a reasonably informed and educated populace, which of course is the goal of journalism.

And if you do not agree with what I have said here, I have a follow up question for you... if the current news organizations are so terrible and inherently biased, what alternative would you propose? What is your idea of a perfect, unbiased media landscape? And would your alternative truly lead to a less biased media or just a media with biases you happen to agree with?

[MichaelMoser123]

> Every reputable news organization follows the journalistic code of ethics that puts institutional barriers in the way to counteract bias.

What about editorial policy: who decides what item is taking the front page and what is published on page 11? Apparently that also has some importance. Has every journalist the opportunity to embark onto several months of research without editorial oversight? I am not sure about that.

> Instead of labelling all news media as generically biased and therefore not to be trusted,

Red herring, labeling: I haven't labeled anything, why is my question received in such a hostile way?

> It is the news media's job to TRY to be as unbiased as possible. It is the news reader's job to TRY and be as informed as possible by reading varied news from different sources.

I can agree with that. Can we agree that journalistic output cannot be trusted blindly?

> And if you do not agree with what I have said here, I have a follow up question for you... if the current news organizations are so terrible and inherently biased, what alternative would you propose

I think that journalism is currently searching for ways to adjust to the realities of the net: on the one hand established journalists don't quite like the loss of authority and fact checking that does occur, on the other hand established journalists have some codes of conduct that are lacking in the online world. I hope the net result will be more transparency and a higher quality of writing, and a more informed public: the current state of the art is far from an ideal state. However i think that nobody should be exempt from critical questions.