Obama will kiss my ... long before I trust the mainstream media again

What will it take for you to trust the mainstream media again? Have you asked yourself that question?

I've learned a few lessons in life and one of these is the simple reality that trust is easily lost and painfully regained. For me, the changes that would be required before I would trust the mainstream media once more are necessarily dramatic, to say the least. In fact, I can hardly imagine the scenario where they would once again gain my trust.

Now, I'm not saying I'm a Dan Rather or Charlie Gibson, though I'm happy to say that I'm not. However, I have worked in journalism for close to 20 years. Some would say that my success was limited. Maybe I could have gone further, climbed a ladder at a publication somewhere but, frankly, my heart was soured by what I saw around me - a commitment to liberalism that seemed to frequently extend beyond journalistic ethics.

As I've indicated, I wasn't on staff with a major newspaper, though I was freelance with one of these for several years. I served as a sports editor for five years but it was a small paper. Of course, with a small paper, that meant I also did a lot more than just sports.

For the most part, when I speak of the liberal bias in journalism, I'm not talking about something I ran into every day while working in the profession. Most of the stories I wrote were generally outside of the sphere of the political, at least on a national scale. But, I do recognize 'slant' when I see it in a story.

It's not that I don't see 'slant' in the coverage on FOXNews - I do. But, it's acknowledged. The mainstream media knows that, for many Americans, awareness has not awakened the public to the realities of what they see, read and hear each day. And the lie is that they haven't admitted it is so. Besides, the liberal bias of the media fits in neatly with the liberal bias found in education. They meld together almost seamlessly. They fit together so well that one seems to give the other credence and vice versa.

The mainstream media knows that many Americans have watched, read and listened to the same big networks and publications for decades. There is an ingrained sense that they can be trusted. There's a basic sense that the positions they push are true even if the individual has a gnawing sense otherwise deep inside.

I've also served as an adviser to a student newspaper at a community college. This is a position generally held by journalist of the 'traditional' liberal posture. Some of these have a healthy attitude about not pushing their personal beliefs on the student journalists. Others run to the other extreme. I count myself among the prior of these and take immense pride in a sense that most of the students I advised had no idea where I stood politically.

To give you an example, and you'll know this is a significant example if you've read my pieces before, Obama actually came to the college where I advised either as a senator or as a candidate to become a senator. It was after his 2004 Democratic Convention speech and he made quite a splash at the school.

I didn't see him. I was in the office working with the students as deadline was looming. But, even with deadline approaching, it was appropriate that the students would cover his arrival at the school.

While sitting at a desk helping a student with the layout of a story, the girl who had gone to cover Obama's visit came into the office and, if you'll pardon my choice of words, was somewhat a flutter because Obama had apparently kissed her on the cheek. I held my tongue.

My job was not to tell them what to think of Obama. It wasn't even to tell them what I thought of Obama. My job was to help them discover the journalistic ethics that once made the American media the envy of the world. It was those very journalistic ethics that drove me to become a journalist myself. And, it was the apparent and widespread abandonment of those ethics that drove me, frankly, along with financial concerns (most journalists are not exactly well compensated) to seek an alternative writing focused career.

I can tell you that I've twice been accused of bias in my coverage, and on the same day. Interestingly enough, the accusations were related to the same series of stories and come from attorneys on opposite sides of the issue. In other words, I was accused of bias in opposing directions, which suggests that I was right where I belonged.

That was one of my best days in journalism because those lawyers clarified for me that my efforts to put stories forth without bias and allow the readers to decide were not in vain. What drives the journalist of the mainstream media today? It certainly isn't the money and it certainly isn't journalistic ethics. The only thing I can imagine is that they are as ideologically predisposed to liberalism as the president.

I believe their ideology is misguided. But, whether I'm right or they're right, it's clear that only one of us is willing to truly hold our perspectives up to the light of day and America is worse off for it.