Hope for the future
Via Romenesko, here's one college student who gets it:
... the journalistic ideal of balance, while noble, too often gets in the way of truthfully reporting a story. Framing news in terms of two supposedly equal but opposing viewpoints ignores the reality that the facts are not always balanced between parties, and thus legitimizes factually inaccurate opinions. Daily Show "correspondent" Rob Corddry's satiric definition of a reporter's role makes these problems clear: "My job is to spend half the time repeating what one side says, and half the time repeating the other." Instead of repeating each side's claims, mainstream media need to start reporting the reality.
Precisely. There really are objectively verifiable facts. Some political arguments really are factually (and contextually) accurate and some really are not. It doesn't always just boil down to a matter of opinion. And it's good to see that at least some young people understand that.