August 1, 2011 at 3:47 PM

After reading article after article, after seeing headline after headline, I’ve realized that an entirely objective media is not always the best form of media.

Media bias is simply not always an issue because sometimes there is a right and wrong. It is not the media’s job to only tell you facts — it is the job of reporters to take a stand, and to find out what is really going on during the political games.

Economist and columnist Paul Krugman recently attacked mainstream journalists for their “cult of balance”. Krugman said, “Writing news reports that always place equal blame on both parties is a big cop-out — a cop-out that only encourages more bad behavior”.

The American public needs to be told hard facts, numbers, and statistics. But there comes a point in time where a “fair” and “balanced” media ignores the bigger picture and the real problem.

According to Jeff Cohen of truth-out.org, mainstream reporters are missing the point in trying to become too centrist. Cohen compares the two political parties like teams on a football field. Today the U.S. media is about positioning itself “equidistant between the two opposing [political] teams.” He says that when reporters are down on the “field” they don’t want to irritate either side “or you might hurt yourself.”

But reporting isn’t about standing on the sidelines. The reporter shouldn’t even be on the field or in the game. The reporter should be looking down from the skybox with an elevated and well-informed view.

In Krugman’s article “The Centrist Cop-Out” he says, “ I joked long ago that if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read ‘Views Differ on Shape of Planet.’ ”

Krugman’s takeaway is this: “Wisdom doesn’t necessarily reside in the middle of the road, and I want leaders who do the right thing, not the centrist thing.”

-- [Caroline Chern]