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> Those networks must limit themselves to neutrally reporting the news and let the people make up their minds. Impartial coverage is important, but neutral reporting is dangerous. Good journalism requires analyzing evidence, not treating all opposing views as equal (false balance). When evidence is clear (such as in the case of the safety of vaccinations, the role humans play in climate change, etc.), "neutral reporting" can be misleading or even damaging. It's the responsibility of journalists to help their audience understand view points, but that doesn't require giving them equal weight. For example, in the case of vaccinations it's important to acknowledge that vaccinations were at one point believed to be linked to developmental disorders, that the study which did so has been debunked, and that the consensus of the medical community is now clear: there is no link between vaccines and autism. The same holds true in the context of an election. For example, journalists should be (and, in many case, are) explaining that while some believe that votes were cast or counted illegally, no evidence of this has been presented. While it appeared that Biden "took the lead" after election day, this was an illusion resulting from the way in which the Republican legislatures in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania caused votes to be counted: they did not allow counting of mail ballots to begin earlier, despite knowing that record numbers would be received this year, and despite knowing that mail ballots would favor Democrats. While convincing reasons were presented for these decisions, such as earlier counting posing problems for volunteer election inspectors, it had predictable effects on the time period over votes were tallied and it is disingenuous for Trump to refer to these as "surprise ballot dumps" and either willfully ignorant or intentionally misleading for him to attempt to claim victory on election night before these ballots had been counted. |