There is an important word missing in Edgar Allen Beem’s discourse on bias in the media: credibility.

Beem concedes that there is a bias in the press and his bias has always been on the liberal side of things. He notes that the conservatives have their own bias in the media, and then concludes that there will always be bias in the media; that “the overt partisanship of many of today’s news outlets is just a return to the future.”

The American news industry is in its death throes, and I suggest that the reason for the industry’s bankruptcy (literally) is that it has lost all of its credibility. No one believes what they read, hear or view in the news media, and that is why the industry is collapsing: their customers simply do not believe the news that the media purports to cover.

By his own account, Been has been part of that process – so he has, really, no one to blame but himself for the dilemma he describes.

Ted Marks
Phippsburg

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