Objectivity standards? Yeah, good luck with that.

In our current culture, much has been made of media bias toward one side or the other. On the far-right blog/forum/news site Free Republic, for example, I've actually seen people using the phrase "mainstream media" as a pejorative (just don't ask me to explain why I was there). Indeed, it's undeniable that individual sources sometimes hold a slant toward one side or the other (I doubt anyone would seriously argue that Olbermann and Maddow don't lean to the left, or Limbaugh and Hannity to the right). Overall, however, I would hold that there is only one gigantic, monolithic "Media" in scare tactics, and in practice, any real institutionalized bias is next to impossible. There are just too many agendas pulling in too many different directions to be viable. Still, much has been made about the possibility of objectivity standards. I'm actually opposed to such a push, but not for the same reason as many others.

First of all, is such a thing as "objectivity" even possible? Who defines it? I'm biased, you're biased, that jerk over there's biased, so "unbiased" can really only mean "a bias I agree with." Horrible basis for an organized push. Second of all, how would these standards possibly be implemented? One possibility has been the "He said, She said" approach, the "equal time" method that CNN follows so much these days. However, that plan has major problems with it. After all, in any given argument, one side has more evidence than the other. Wouldn't that approach just be biased toward the side that has no such support? Should the media really give equal time to Obama birthers, 9/11 truthers, young earth creationists, and the Flat Earth Society? Not just no, but HELL NO. The "center" in an argument should not be determined by whichever side's crazier.

I suppose we could implement a method by which the evidence is what's presented, with less regard for framing, but that has practical problems as well. First, a metric fuckton of people just won't watch it (and yes, that's an exact measurement). That may sound overly cynical, but let's face it, in our culture, the Food Network gets comparable ratings to C-Span. People just aren't interested in seeing the solid information. It could certainly be questioned whether bad information is any better than none at all, but I'd rather people at least try to keep informed. Second of all, remember the "bias I agree with" bit earlier? It comes back into play. A good or bad lawyer is determined by "how did they do with my case," and the same is true with the media. If the evidence doesn't agree with what the viewer "knows it should be," suddenly there's a media bias conspiracy again. There's just no winning.