Roy Peter Clark, writing at Poynter, argues that the problem isn’t media bias, it’s that the public is biased … against the media!

Clark’s article is a tour de force of sanctimony and buffoonery that must be read to be appreciated, but the killer paragraph is this:

We have traveled a dark and dreary road since the days when the alter-ego of Superman was crusading reporter Clark Kent, or when the heroes of Frank Capra movies were dashing reporters, the booze-swilling champions of the little guy. Now, instead, we have the “Law & Order” effect. Of the hundreds of episodes you’ve witnessed of that TV show, how many times have you seen a reporter or photographer portrayed as helpful? The usual shtick is that they are slimeballs or part of the wolf pack that runs up the courthouse steps with notebooks and microphones extended.

In other words, the unbiased media is a victim of media bias. Too cute! It’s the sort of argument that makes one’s head spin all the way around like that poor girl in The Exorcist.

The “champions of the little guy” is a telling bit of bias on its own. Objectively speaking, the “little guy” is at least as apt to be wrong as he is to be right. It’s the “little guy” who sues McDonald’s for a gazillion dollars because the coffee is hot. But in the liberal/populist faith that dominates the press, the “little guy” is always the victim of Big Mean Business or some similar evildoer.

And Clark’s conclusion?

Critics be damned. … [N]othing journalists do will reverse the dark tides of popular cynicism. The wrecking balls destroying the credibility of the press cannot be stopped until we focus more attention on the credibility of those who are pulling the levers, including a public that has been conditioned, like rats in a Skinnerian dystopia, to hate us.

In other words, “Let’s attack the critics, because our work couldn’t possibly be defective!”

I have a competing theory: There are some great newspapers around today (WSJ, NY Sun, Dallas Morning News) but in general most newspapers do a much worse job of reporting interesting and useful information than they did 15 years ago, and an enormously worse job than they did a generation ago, especially when compared to other sources of similar information that are available. (I only mention newspapers because I can’t imagine anybody takes TV news seriously enough to worry about it one way or the other.)