Ethical journalists do not begin with the conclusion. They begin with the facts, allowing the preponderance of the facts themselves to present the story that needs to be told.
Today’s journalists often begin with a faulty premise, largely driven by their political party. They allow themselves to be deceived into cherry-picking only those facts which support their position, or worse, failing to weed our erroneous or false information before going to press.
The term “mudstream media” is entirely appropriate.
Good journalists gather all the information, ranking it from most to least credible, not by their bias, but by the preponderance of the information, double-checking the facts, both to corroborate and to discount information through multiple sources. In a way, they act a bit like both prosecutor and defender in the public eye.
Presenting “both sides of the story” is NOT good journalism, particularly when one side of the story is full of holes, is only from “our sources,” or cannot stand up to rigorous scrutiny. The “equal time” doctrine amounts to journalistic FAILURE. It’s a failure in journalistic ethics, integrity, and reality. Furthermore, by merely lending an air of credibility to groups engaging in violence, if not terrorist tactics, bad journalists legitimize criminal behavior, thereby performing a grave disservice to society as a whole.
“The mainstream media is in a tailspin: TWICE in one day, CNN defended Antifa, and MSNBC can’t figure out why Trump’s approval rating is still solid. Perhaps it’s because your MSM colleagues are running cover for a domestic terrorist group, and the American people know that your nonstop negative coverage of the president is fake.”
Source: Media Defends Antifa but Can’t Figure Out Why Trump Is Winning