Opinion from the Right

The Associated Press and other legacy outlets openly abandoned objectivity in 2023. Here’s how that’s going for them.

Editors at some of America’s top newsrooms openly argued for abandoning objectivity in a 2023 Washington Post opinion piece titled, “Newsrooms that move beyond ‘objectivity’ can build trust.” Two years later, the media has almost totally lost trust, with viewership and readership tanking at many corporate outlets, and a meager 31% of Americans saying they have a "great deal" of trust in news.

Consumers are turning to social media and podcasts, with Joe Rogan averaging 11 million viewers per episode. CNN's primetime, meanwhile, attracts less than 4% of that — just about 400,000 viewers per night. 

Why? Legacy outlets have totally abandoned their post as trustworthy news providers. Take the Associated Press, formerly the gold standard of objective journalism, which now openly shuns even-handedness. The Washington Post stated AP had “rejected objectivity as a coverage standard,” attributing this sentiment to Kathleen Carroll, a former AP executive. 

“It’s objective by whose standard?” Carroll said. “That standard seems to be White, educated, fairly wealthy.”

When one of the world’s most wide-reaching media outlets has such a strong slant — chalking objectivity up to race, as if truth has a skin color — it’s dangerous. Society needs neutral institutions that hold themselves to a standard of fairness. 

Indeed, AP barely veils its disdain for conservative figures, rather than giving a sober take. 

In just the last two weeks, one AP headline said Musk was “intimidating” his opponents — a subjective interpretation of his actions and an example of spin. A fair journalist would merely relay what Musk said and describe his actions, not interpret it negatively for the reader. 

In another piece, illegal immigrants were referred to as “immigrants without legal status” — as though these individuals merely lacked status, rather than having broken US law, in an example of word choice bias.

Out of 27 articles in the AP Fact Check section, 11 focused on claims made by Donald Trump or JD Vance, while just one focused on claims made by a Democrat — and it was published four months ago, during the vice presidential debate, which demonstrates clear story choice bias.

News outlets around the globe rely on AP wire content to fill coverage gaps. If millions of people are receiving slanted news, that’s propaganda, not news “without bias,” which is how AP currently describes its product in a pop-up donation plea:

AP claims a free press is crucial to democracy. Sure, it is. But we’re not a free citizenry if we aren’t empowered to decide for ourselves. 

Rogan has risen to the top because, despite not being a trained journalist, he is much more objective and curious than any major corporate news outlet, including AP. He doesn't slant, spin, or manipulate his guests' views — he simply asks them questions, and lets them speak.

Listeners appreciate and trust Rogan's approach because it's honest — he doesn’t gatekeep information to suit the Democratic establishment, like so much of the corporate, legacy press, and he doesn’t spin and twist information to make one side appear evil, like AP does. 

A year after The Washington Post published the op-ed touting the end of objectivity, owner Jeff Bezos wrote his own piece hitting a very different vein — pointing out that the public does not trust the media, and that presidential endorsements only reinforce a perception of bias. (Oddly, today he announced Washington Post will not be taking a position of balance with its opinion pages, and will write "every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.")

Democracies are persuasive societies, meaning there are many forces attempting to convince citizens of how to vote, act, buy, and think. Democracies need at least some sources of nonpartisan information so that citizens can truly be free to decide for themselves. 

If AP takes its role in a democracy as seriously as it claims to, values like fairness, even-handedness, and an oath not to inject spin, partisanship, and subjective judgements matter just as much as freedom.

There is nothing wrong with being a biased news outlet, so long as it is open about its perspective. It’s the ones that don’t, yet still spin their stories, that are condemnable.

The role of the journalist is to be a neutral source of information so the reader can decide for themselves. Joe Rogan achieves this — legacy media does not. Unless legacy media commits to a truly trustworthy, balanced product, we'll continue to see them decline.

Julie Mastrine is a writer and Director of Marketing and Media Bias Ratings at AllSides, which provides balanced news and media bias ratings. Her work has appeared in Evie Magazine, TheBlaze, The Epoch Times, and more.

This piece was edited and reviewed by Andy Gorel, News and Social Media Editor (Center), and Emily Allen, News Editor & Bias Analyst (Left).