Today I received an email from my dad that had a link to view an article displayed on the web page, “The Ornery American.” The article was entitled, “Would the last honest reporter please turn on the lights?” This article, having an extremely bitter and demanding tone, requests the return of honesty to our nation’s reporters.
The writer is fed up with the constant plethora of articles smeared across his daily newspaper that merely act as campaign ads for certain politicians, particularly Barack Obama. While his true colors are definitely evident within his writing (he is most definitely a Republican on the defensive), I do believe he has a point, and a major one at that.
Our job as journalists is exactly as he stated it: “to the tell the truth.”
Has our nation’s media been following this demand of the job? Or rather have reporters managed to weasel in article after article that thrust their candidate of choice into the limelight, concealing all flaws and missteps that could be of substantial importance to voters on election day? Have all journalists lost their sight of the primary goal of this field, which is to provide the people with the whole truth at all times?
Due to the current obsession with the presidential election, I wonder if articles endorsing a certain candidate or publicly assailing another holds more value to the newspaper than one that revealed the truth masked behind a candidates’ words or actions (even if that candidate happened to be the reporters favorite or not). Has journalism suffered a fatal blow to its standard of truth due to the election, or has this past adherence to truth merely given way to a new adherence to something else of greater value to a generation obsessed with politics and people rather than beliefs and facts?
Perhaps this transformation in our field is just momentary, but then again the whole world seems to be wrapped up in change, so perhaps this change will manage to stay for a while. I sure hope not.

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2008-10-05-1.html