>>The real point is that people in this country, for some reason, believe that in the past, the press was neutral. That's never been the case and, in fact, in many ways, it's closer to neutral today than it used to be.
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>Used to be when? Way back, the original "yellow journalism" and all that, sure, they made the current media look like actuaries. But I would disagree with you if you're comparing to the press of 10, 20, 30 years ago. IMO the media now are much more aligned with institutional POVs. And they seem more comfortable having those POVs, which to me is the more worrisome part. Objectivity often seems more like a quaint notion than a professional ideal now.

I was comparing to, say, in the early years of the Republic (Adams vs. Jefferson, anyone) or the turn of the 20th century.

As for today vs. our youth, I think what we're seeing is the death of the small, more independent newspaper. When every city of any size had two or more papers, and every small town had its own daily. They all still had political POVs, but there were more of them.

Tamar