There is no such things as objective reporting. Everyone recounting an event be it journalists or historians will inject some bias in its récollection.
What you should want is journalists to be thorough in their fact checking and open about their editorial line and where their interest lies.
What’s annoying me here is that it’s both top-down and covert.
I understand that's the current thinking in journalism, but I actually disagree with it. I think giving people free license to editorialize is harmful. Even given that it's true that it's impossible to be bias free, I think it's important to try to be bias free. When you stop trying things get even more biased which is exactly the problem with journalism today.
It is highly biased and inflammatory and actually encourages people to be more tribal rather than try to come together and compromise despite their differences. I'm ok with not agreeing with the journalism industry here. I think they had it right 20 years ago.
Just because journalists are human and as such can't be completely objective, doesn't mean they shouldn't strive to be objective. This is what civilization is built on, constraining our base impulses and acting with logic and empathy.
What you should want is journalists to be thorough in their fact checking and open about their editorial line and where their interest lies.
What’s annoying me here is that it’s both top-down and covert.