A Biased Media? What one journalist thinks ...

A comment on media bias from the fall 2006 issue of "The Grassroots Editor," the quarterly journal of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors.

In the article entitled, "Newspapers have a moral obligation to recommend political candidates," Jim Painter, a member of the ISWNE board of directors and managing editor of the West Valley View in Litchfield Park, Ariz., writes:

In my opinion, it’s the concept of an “unbiased” press that is doing the public a disservice. There is no such thing as an unbiased press. Deep down, we all know that to be true, but no one in the mainstream media wants to admit it publicly.
We would like to leave our readers (or viewers or listeners, as the case may be) with the impression that, as professional journalists, we are somehow the masters of our personal biases, which, in a sense, makes us godlike creatures. I’ve known a lot of newspaper people in my life, and I can assure you, we are not god-like creatures.

What do you think?