Unbiased reporting is a historical anomaly

The journalistic ideals of objectivity and accuracy are dying. That means we're returning to the American norm.

The editorial staff at Reuters Press Agency, circa 1900.
(Image credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The ideals of journalistic objectivity and accuracy are taking a beating. On that nearly everyone on every side of the media wars can agree.

On the right, we find the increasing embrace of an explicitly partisan slant to the news. This is the case from Breitbart and its many muckraking imitators on the far right to Fox News, which has come to define itself as the mouthpiece of the Trump administration, just as it did for the administration of George W. Bush.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.