Elie Dvorin is shocked that CBS is “putting ideology ahead of professionalism.”

It is instructive to note that conservative commentators who now are so concerned with CBS’s bias and sloppy fact-checking are eerily deferential when it comes to Fox News, whose bias and virtual lack of fact-checking have been documented again and again (Fox’s hypocritical slogan notwithstanding).

Every major news channel in the United States today is guilty many times over of bias and shoddy fact-checking. This by no means excuses any of them.

The problem is excessive concentration of media ownership into a smaller and smaller group of rich, powerful companies. The result is a misinformed public ill-equipped to make the critical decisions facing our democracy.

The solution is for people to hold all media outlets accountable and demand accurate, fair reporting. If Dvorin really cares about professionalism and facts, that means holding Fox (among others) to the same standards that conservative pundits have so sanctimoniously invoked in the CBS case; or will those standards be forgotten as quickly as they appeared?

Joe Futrelle

University employee