Is bias-free news coverage coming back into vogue?

Keith Olbermann's departure from MSNBC last year is just such an example, notes Mr. Levinson. The channel's coverage still tilts liberal, he says, but "nobody is as far left as Olbermann."

Over at the Huffington Post, considered a left-of-center website, an adjustment appears to be under way as well, says political scientist William Rosenberg at Drexel University in Philadelphia. A social media commentator who recently addressed one of his classes said the site has "widened its scope" by tapping more guest bloggers, Professor Rosenberg reports.

Changes at Fox might be attributed to a realization that the most conservative part of the Republican Party has been splintering. That demographic has been an important one to Fox, says Robert Thompson, founder of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. "As the Republican Party has begun to squabble and fall apart into smaller and smaller divides, it makes sense that Fox has been pushed to reach out to a more moderate, larger audience," he says.

Activists fed up with the media are the real accelerants in this broader culture of correction, says Craigslist's Mr. Newmark in a phone interview. "The press is the immune system of a democracy," he says. "Trust is the new black." America needs a robust press to keep public figures honest, he says, "and we need them not to make matters worse." He is working with the Center for Public Integrity and the Sunlight Foundation, among others, to help bring attention to the issue. "What I will do is lend my name to these efforts,... and I will plan to help with modest funding," he says.

Newmark's aha moment came last June, he says, while watching Fox's Chris Wallace interview Comedy Central's Jon Stewart about the problem of reporters not challenging their sources over misstatements. "Stewart has done some of the most constructive criticism of this problem," he says, "and he's also pretty funny about it." Newmark had been considering his philanthropic interests, and says he decided to help join citizen journalists with media professionals to tackle this problem of "how do we make truth matter again?"

This inflection point for Newmark points to Comedy Central's influence on the next generation's perspective on the news media. "You have Jon Stewart assigning himself the role of ombudsman for Fox, hammering on Mr. Beck night after night," says Mr. Thompson, "and then you have Stephen Colbert basically doing a parody of Bill O'Reilly." Comedy Central's influence goes far beyond the actual audience for these shows, Thompson notes, and Fox's Mr. Ailes "has to have paid attention to that."

Previous

1 | 2 | 3