In the process of providing information about the new TV series “Alaska Daily,” the Oct. 3 ADN article also expressed the view that the important functions of journalists are “gathering and verifying facts” before reporting them to the public, and that hopefully this new TV series can help the public to understand these functions and, as a result, have more faith in the news.
Accepting that these functions are the complete story of what goes into making the news ignores the additional factor of bias that all humans have, including journalists, resulting from moral, religious and political adaptations to life. While the news media always insist that most journalists and editors do not allow their personal feelings to influence their reporting of the facts, the printed word tells us otherwise. Maybe one of these days we will be able to get just the facts and have more faith in the news — when we get journalist and editor robots.
— Jim Lieb
Palmer
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