Lester Holts remark while receiving the Edward R Morrow award in journalism, that “fairness is overrated," and it's not necessary to "always give two sides equal weight and merit" is first of all a cynical reductio ad absurdum. In other words, while there are cases where his belief may be considered valid, e.g., we don’t have to give flat earthers equal time to the vast majority of people and scientists who understand the earth is round, there are definitely many cases that are not so clear cut, especially in politics. There are many issues where neither side has a monopoly on truth. There are many instances where the facts can support either side depending on how the issue is framed. There are issues that simply have no right or wrong and it depends on one’s beliefs. In these cases, a fair exposition of both sides is the only ethical standard for an organization that considers itself a news media and not a party organ with an agenda. Secondly, who in any case, is the arbitrators of truth in Lester’s world? Are they unfailable and god like? Do they never make mistakes? We see so called “experts” disagree all the time. We also see “experts” change their mind over time. This has been particularly true with the Covid-19 pandemic.
We are way beyond the point where we can even pretend to debate if the mainstream media (MSM) is fair and balanced. As CNN Technical Director Charlie Chester said: “Look what we did, we [CNN] got Trump out. I am 100% going to say it, and I 100% believe that if it wasn't for CNN, I don't know that Trump would have got voted out…I came to CNN because I wanted to be a part of that.”
How do we fix this problem? (at least I see it as a problem) As a start, we could bring back the fairness doctrine which was a policy that required the holders of broadcast licenses to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was honest, equitable, and balanced. This act was repealed in 1987. I suspect this is unlikely to happen any time soon. In the meantime, readers and viewers must constantly remind themselves that they are generally only seeing one side of important issues and make it their duty to seek out alternate points of view. This is hard, firstly because of the massive dominance of the current mono opinion MSM. It is also hard because it is generally unpleasant to read or sit through news which disagrees with our own biases. Confirmation bias means that absorbing messages we already agree with is pleasant. It is like eating ice cream. Forcing oneself to listen to ideas and opinions we disagree with is like taking a dose of cod liver oil. Yes, it tastes bad but it is good for you. We need to have all the facts at hand to make informed decisions. Beware of truthiness, the belief that a particular statement is true based on ones’ gut feelings without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.