What responsibility does the media have to report the facts instead of pushing their agenda?

Its a two part problem as a whole we prefer to be entertained rather than educated. Also many people seem to confuse real journalist reporting with TV entertainment reporters and pundents who have no legal responsibility to be completely accurate or as accurate as possible where as journalists do have such a responsibility.

well... I think you hit a few nails on the head... and in a way... you damaged your own argument...

a couple of thoughts...

1. I think some people just want the juicy gossip and the entertainment news... these are basically junk, but it's becoming more and more of our media...

2. I think that there are some people out there who do value a good media and if they don't report the facts, people change the channel... there are a lot of options out there... and people aren't afraid to try them...

but on the whole... I think the big players don't omit that many facts and the actual "news" portions of the channels do tell the news in a fairly straightforward way...

now if you want to get into the opinion shows... that's a different matter altogether... and it's scary how many people say they get their "news" from those opinion shows...

The ONLY responsibility the media have is to report the facts. When i took journalism in college, we were told to answer who, what, when and where. The WHY was to be left to the editorial page. Of course, this was nearly 30 years ago before the media were owned by a few conglomerates who conspired to give us the news as they saw fit and interject as much bias to it as they could - both left and right.

The internet has been a godsend for information. Naturally, some of it is useless but i trust the news sites i visit regularly.

As to funding papers, subscription rates for all the big city newspapers are in the toilet and have been for several years. One day, perhaps the editors and owners will wake up to this fact but i doubt it will be anytime soon.

The media's only agenda is to make money.

If they can make money by reporting on a popular president they'll give that president positive coverage.

If they can make money by slamming a president with the lowest approval in history, they'll do that.

Remember, all of the main stream media supprted Bush's march to war. No one asked any questions about the wmds. The media gave Bush a pass on everything pertaining to war.

And most important of all, no one asked any questions about the official 9-11 story which is demonstrably false to my dog.

Hilarious. Neo-cons are so accustomed to their blind following that they accuse everyone who does not agree with them of being liberal. Am I a liberal?

You do not have to be a liberal to show the harsh realities of a very poorly thought out decision.

I was vacationing in Australia during the builld up to the Iraq war. If you think our press is liberal, you don't have a term to describe the news and protests that I saw over there.

None. They have no, nor will they accept any, responsibility to report the truth, facts or real science. All the media is loosing money 'cause people, intelligent people, just don't trust or believe most of what they say anymore. Their credibility has gone down the sewer. Ironic isn't it? lol Nyuk!

"The media" are FOR PROFIT organizations.. they have no responsibility to anybody but their stockholders. The nightly news is an entertainment program just like a sitcom.

News papers have to sell.It is all governed by profit.