Is There Really Any Objective Journalism?

I saw a story on the Fox News website yesterday about a recent study done on corruption in state governments. The study was done by "The Center for Public Integrity" and the results are reported to show a great deal of corruption and unethical behavior in all 50 states. Each state was graded, with no state receiving an A, and 8 states being given F's.  After seeing that all of the states with F's, were red states with Republican governors, I decided to take a closer look. The rest of the states were pretty evenly split between Republican and Democrat governors, with Chris Christie's New Jersey receiving the highest grade. So, other than the bottom 8 all being red, the study doesn't appear to be biased toward either party, but something still didn't seem right. The Center for Public Integrity claims to be "one of the oldest non-partisan, non-profit investigative news organizations in the country". Their website says they are funded by charitable foundations and individual donations, and that it "does not accept funding from labor unions or governments". However, after taking a look at the archived articles, they appear to be anything but non-partisan, unbiased, objective, or investigative. The vast majority of stories in the political section were anti-Republican, with a lot of focus on the potential GOP nominees. The major agenda issue for the organization is environmentalism/climate change and they are decidedly on the side of man caused climate change. They are also very supportive of government controlled health care with, again, no dissenting views. There are slight hints of anti-militarism, anti-business, and pro-globalization; they have a sister organization called "The Center for Global Integrity". While there is no campaigning or open endorsement of the Democratic party, the vast majority of content is decidedly liberal/progressive. In an article mocking Rick Santorum for calling global warming a hoax, which says it was written "By FactCheck.Org", the writer say "Santorum isn't the only skeptic, but skeptics are rare among scientists who actually study the climate." Yeah, not so much. It appears that facts can be rare among some organizations that have the words "Fact Check" in their name.While the authors brag about their data set of 1,372 climate researchers, they fail to mention the more than 31,000 scientists that have signed the petition denouncing the theory of man made global warming, at http://petitionproject.org/. Evidently, their investigative journalists failed to uncover that The Heartland Institute has held multiple international meetings for skeptics, that have been attended by over 1,000 climate scientists. This type of one sided editorializing is nothing new, but, it's increasingly becoming the only type of news we ever see; and far too many people just accept it as fact. As for the Center's claims of non-partisan funding, the list of supporting foundations are decisively progressive and share similar ideologies including environmental justice, social justice, global economic justice, and sustainability. The following are just a few examples:

• Adessium Foundation
• California Endowment
• The Ford Foundation
• The Joyce Foundation
• Oak Foundation
• Soros.org/Open Society Foundations

The Executive Director of The Center is Bill Buzenberg, former vice president of the left leaning National Public Radio (NPR). I have no problem with writers or pundits voicing their opinions, that's their job and we have our share on the right. The difference is; we know which side Rush Limbaugh or James Carville is on. When organizations that portray themselves as non-partisan watchdogs are secretly promoting an agenda it becomes dangerous. Theories are presented as fact, and accepted as such by much of the general public. The sad fact is, we can no longer trust anything we see, hear, or read in the news. We must take the time to investigate it ourselves. Fortunately, that's not hard to do. There is so little questioning of what's reported, that the authors of the lies don't even bother trying to cover their tracks. Our country and our freedoms are being taken, but not by force or coercion. We're surrendering them voluntarily because we're too lazy or ignorant to see the truth.