Bernard Goldberg: Russert took media bias seriously

Journalistic bias has long remained one of my pet peeves (the elephant in a zoo of pet peeves). The effort Tim Russert put into his journalism was obvious, and Bernard Goldberg does a service by highlighting Russert's attitude.

Tim was a big proponent of diversity, but he wanted to go further than the usual stuff. "I am for having women in the newsroom and minorities in the newsroom -- I'm all for it. It opens up our eyes and gives us different perspectives. But just as well, let's have people with military experience; let's have people from all walks of life, people from the top-echelon schools but also people from junior colleges and the so-called middling schools -- that's the pageantry of America . . . You need cultural diversity, you need ideological diversity. You need it."

Tim understood that without that kind of diversity, journalism would be in trouble. He knew it wasn't good for journalism or America if almost all the people reporting the news lived and worked in the same bubble.

(The Wall Street Journal)

The ideal of objective news coverage has seemed to increasingly elude the mainstream media. The FOX take on European journalism--partisan but fair--seems best positioned to serve as the next dominant paradigm in U.S. news.