Objective journalism is not just about oft-mentioned media bias, it's about giving the public an honest evaluation of events in the world. It is about presenting actual reality, not just what people are saying about reality. It's about cutting through the rhetoric to deliver facts so that the public can make informed decisions about what is going on around them. This is important not just to be informed, but also to moderate the effect of the echo chamber we often place overselves in, surrounded by friends that agree with us politically and--almost certainly if you're an Iron Blog reader--immersing ourselves in political blogs that constantly affirm our ideology, sometimes at the expense of honesty.

Going back to the opening example, the Los Angeles Times failed in its pursuit of objective journalism. It took Senator Hagel's words in a speech at face value, apparently without attempting to verify them. When Campaign Desk contacted the Senator's office and requested a fact sheet on the plan, the sheet provided the correct information, which is that Senator Hagel's plan would allow the investment of four percentage points of a person's 12.4 percent payroll tax, rather than four percent of that tax as the article stated. The mistake should have been immediately apparent to anyone who has been following the Social Security debate, which you would expect a reporter writing an article on it for a major newspaper would be doing. Due to this blunder, there are now potentially thousands of people who have an inaccurate understanding of Senator Hagel's plan and might have a completely different opinion of the plan because of it.

Democracy cannot properly function with an ignorant electorate. A basic understanding of the facts at hand is crucial for people to govern themselves. However, strong and objective journalism has suffered greatly and is increasingly hard to find. Less than a month ago, a Harris poll showed that fully 47 percent of the population thinks that "Saddam Hussein helped plan and support the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001." There is no evidence to support that statement, yet nearly half of the population believes it. That is a failure of the press to properly educate the public and it speaks directly to the lack of objective journalism we see today.