The stance of "objective" media seems to be, if you listen to arguments on both sides of an issue & then decide one side is correct, you then become "partisan," which means you can't be trusted. Thus, the only way to truly be open-minded & trustworthy is to never take a position.

But of course, the people who have studied an issue most & understand it best are those *most likely to make a judgment on the merits*, so if you exclude them as "biased," you're left with glib, mealy-mouthed, "both sides have points" poseurs.

One more thing & I promise I'll shut up.

Assessing evidence & making judgments is a skill. Doing it well requires practice, submitting your judgments to critique, defending & fine-tuning them. If you, like an "objective" journalist, refrain from doing so on principle...

... you never develop the skill. You become a smoothbrain, a sucker, an easy mark for hucksters. And I've met & hung out with journalists like this, the ones whose jobs pivot around the performance of objectivity. When you can finally persuade them to discuss actual issues ...

... you find out that they are almost childlike. They've just never developed the skills involved in analysis & argumentation. If they wanna be like Peter Baker & frame this as a virtue, fine, but it makes them *worse journalists*. If you don't know how to analyze & argue ...

... you're far more likely to let sophistry pass you by. You're far more likely to be manipulated. You willingly render yourself a target for hucksters. And you get ... the last several decades of US political journalism. Sigh. </fin again>