Individual journalists indeed tried (and still do), however editors and upper management have always tried to steer their staff in the direction which mostly benefits their shareholders or their biggest advertisers. If journalists still persist and write stories exposing the wrong people, those journalists do loose their jobs and their stories do get canned or watered down (e.g. with equal presentation of “the other side”).
Editors aren’t always evil and do this on purpose, however as humans we all have implicit biases. And our biases increase if we feel like we owe somebody a favor (this is why doctors are not allowed to accept gifts from pharmaceutical companies in many countries). If upper management tells a senior editor that company A is their biggest advertiser, and a journalist tells a story unfavorable to company A, then the senior editor might feel like company A doesn’t deserve this treatment and orders a counter story which exonerates the company to be presented on the same page.
Eh, journalists are human and many have very strong political and ideological views that are quite apparent in their writing. Editors try to tie together the paper into a coherent voice and brand, which also needs to be able to ‘feed itself’ somehow.
2. My rational way of thinking has lead me to certain set of beliefs about the world and how it operates
3. I don't think about these beliefs all the time, because they make sense to me, but I reserve the right to change them should my perception change
4. It may take a while for my beliefs to change since these are conclusions I have made after thinking about topics rationally for a period of time. A sunk cost of sorts, if you will.
I think that most people would see that list and say hey, there's a person who is probably rational and introspective.
Now add the following:
0. I am a journalist
5. I report facts objectively but my decision making process on what is important to the reader may be affected by my human brain and my idea of the situation garnered from my experience with the subject matter and my human beliefs
This still isn't the dreaded "media bias," although it's clearly a bias. We have more accurate journalism right now than in any other part of human history. We just have more editorialising too.
What I'm specifically arguing against is that there was ever a time when there WASN'T bias in journalism. That's nonsense.
Journalism is a craft which takes a level of expertise to master. Many journalists have spent decades mastering this craft which sometimes includes a degree in higher education. Knowing and adjusting for your biases is very much a part of this craft and good journalists do get really good at that skill. In fact knowing and adjusting for your biases is such a big part of journalism that you can assume that a journalist that doesn’t possess this skill is gonna be pretty poor at their job.
Now this is not to say that good journalists employ this skill effortlessly and infallibly. No of course not, however a good journalist will do this better then a person who is not skilled in the craft of journalism. You might claim that I’m putting journalists on a high horse here, however I’m only doing so by recognizing that they practice a craft with increasing skill levels. If this puts journalists on a high horse, then same can be said about physicists or doctors, in that they get better at their craft with practice.
Editors aren’t always evil and do this on purpose, however as humans we all have implicit biases. And our biases increase if we feel like we owe somebody a favor (this is why doctors are not allowed to accept gifts from pharmaceutical companies in many countries). If upper management tells a senior editor that company A is their biggest advertiser, and a journalist tells a story unfavorable to company A, then the senior editor might feel like company A doesn’t deserve this treatment and orders a counter story which exonerates the company to be presented on the same page.