"For instance, I did not know until well after the fact that [Times
correspondent] John Burns harbored some quite favorable views about the
attack on Iraq. He not only admitted in 2010 and 2011
that he failed to anticipate the massive carnage and destruction the
invasion would wreak but also viewed the invading U.S. soldiers as
“ministering angels” and “liberators.” Does that make him an activist
rather than a journalist? I don’t think so. But as a reader, I really
wish I would have known his hidden views at the time he was reporting on
the war so that I could have taken them into account.
It is, I believe, very hard to argue that the ostensibly “objective”
tone required by large media outlets builds public trust, given the very
low esteem with which the public regards those media institutions. Far
more than concerns about ideological bias, the collapse of media
credibility stems from things like helping the U.S. government
disseminate falsehoods that led to the Iraq War and, more generally, a
glaring subservience to political power: pathologies exacerbated by the
reportorial ban on any making clear, declarative statements about the
words and actions of political officials out of fear that one will be
accused of bias."
