News organizations deliver news and, in so doing, make decisions about what stories are important, which sources are reliable, what angles to take on a story, not to mention the editorial pages. As long as that's in place, we should encourage them to live up to this mantra as much as possible, but also know that objectivity is not even close to being practicable, and so develop our media-savvy. If you are a Free-Market. This allows us to focus more on the facts at hand rather than getting caught up in doing interpretations of interpretations of the news. By pretending that objectivity is possible, news organizations lull news consumers into a sense of false security.
Conflict is emphasized over consensus.
Crime is consistently overreported. Novelty is more valued than everyday occurences which are more likely to have a big impact on our lives. And so on. I agree that C-SPAN is a great resource, but it is not really a news organization. News organizations deliver news and, in so doing, make decisions about what stories are important, which sources are reliable, what angles to take on a story, not to mention the editorial pages.