DukeLeto

As a liberal myself, I must dispute that assertion. I admit that I am a small sample, but I certainly attempt to keep personal feelings out of my argumentation. In matters of stating the facts, there will always be some room to interpret or to frame them in such a way that one's preferred interpretation of events is the one that seems most obvious. It is the core of FACT, however, that must remain untouched--and I see many more entirely spurious rumors spread by Republicans about Democrats (though I am no stalwart friend of the Democratic party) than vice versa. One example would be the infamous assertion by Al Gore that he "invented the Internet." This <i>never happened</i>. In context, it is clear that he was claiming credit for helping Internet development get the funding it needed. This is not opinion or subjective analysis, it is Fact--and the "liberal" media repeated Republican deceptions on this subject throughout the 2000 campaign. I provide only the first example to come to mind. There are many others.
In the same vein, the reaction of an author/pundit/news personality to being corrected speaks volumes about their professionalism and journalistic integrity. Most professionals, when they erred, were once grateful for an opportunity to set the record straight. It used to be important for their credibility. Sadly, it is more common nowadays for an erstwhile "journalist" to continue arguing against indisputable factual opposition, and suggest that the facts themselves are nothing more than spin. Failing this, facts are often completely ignored when they are inconvenient. This sort of disingenuity issues far more often from reactionary journalists than from progressives, in large part because reactionaries (to date) have used more bogus information in their works than progressives. This is clearly proven by numerous fact-checking organizations that review both liberal and conservative works.
I believe, like Sherlock Holmes, that it is fatal to theorize in advance of the facts. When I view the mass media as a whole, I find that it has so thoroughly discarded this ideal that the "news" it presumes to spread among the public is scarcely deserving of the name. This applies equally to "liberal" institutions like the NYT and avowedly conservative ones like the WSJ. All news media have developed a distaste for fact-checking that disgusts me, and should offend anyone (opinion!) who cares a whit about the scientific process and a general dedication to the truth. It seems that the extra time and expense of actually making certain that a story is true is less important than whether it is a <i>good</i> (read: profitable) story.

Sorry about the length. Much to respond to here.