Anything other than pure factual reporting isn’t news it’s opinion. Opinion has no place in the news. News should be reported bias free. Facts should be reported as such not given political spin to suit a corporations agenda.
What are facts and truth? A fact is something known to be or proven true. How do we know, and what is a proof? From science? Whether scientist or journalist, even what you choose to focus on, study and report, is the object of bias. We’re all biased to some extent, and it’s difficult to escape our basic and often unrecognised assumptions about the world we inhabit. We interpret what we see based on previous experience and our being the product of our upbringing in time and place, be that in our tacit judgment of people we meet (or watch when they’re reporting the news) or how we assess situations. Moreover, a basic insight from philosophy of science is that we can never really prove something. We can, on the other hand, refute and disprove, and by our continued and collective efforts, we move towards that elusive truth.
Ok, so maybe news media should nevertheless TRY to report objectively and neutrally the facts alone. That would be a separate and borderline boring news genre, though. I also like to get the analysis of what lies beneath, what led to, what are the consequences, etc - all dimensions which go beyond the factual description of an event, at least to some extent. The inviting of several views mentioned above is a good check on bias which could be used more. News should encompass both facts and opinions, in my opinion, but that hinges on acknowledging underlying assumptions and stating more clearly where one stands. That could make for a good start at finding common ground and help humanity reorient our currently diverging paths.
