Yeah, yeah, true objectivity is objectively impossible. We know.
The thing is, this isn't binary. There's a sliding scale between "totally objective" and "totally biased". When you eliminate the (unattainable) standard of "total objectivity", then reporters and news organizations move more toward biased. And the difference matters. You used to be able to get news that at least tried to be unbiased, that wasn't openly pushing a narrative. That made it possible to form a more accurate (though not totally accurate) view of what was actually going on.
>You used to be able to get news that at least tried to be unbiased, that wasn't openly pushing a narrative. That made it possible to form a more accurate (though not totally accurate) view of what was actually going on.
Part of the problem with this line of thought it that a lot of bias is not intentional. There was never a moment in history in which you could pick up a newspaper with nothing but completely unbiased facts inside. Even today, most news sources aren't intentionally misleading even if they might be biased. Recognizing these inherent and subtle biases are required in order to know "what was actually going on".
There was this thing called "yellow journalism". It was very much not trying to be unbiased.
Most US 20th century journalism tried to be better than that. And, by trying, they were better than yellow journalism. Yes, there was still bias. But the difference between, say, 20% bias and 80% bias made a real difference.
So maybe today we're at 40% bias instead of 80% bias. It's still worse than it was, and the difference still matters. (And, by the way, one of the ways it matters is in peoples' trust of the media. We don't need people who are obviously trying to manipulate us; we already have enough of those.)
The thing is, this isn't binary. There's a sliding scale between "totally objective" and "totally biased". When you eliminate the (unattainable) standard of "total objectivity", then reporters and news organizations move more toward biased. And the difference matters. You used to be able to get news that at least tried to be unbiased, that wasn't openly pushing a narrative. That made it possible to form a more accurate (though not totally accurate) view of what was actually going on.