Every day, over 50 percent of Americans watch televised news broadcasts, almost 25 percent read online news and 40 percent read a newspaper. While the news business is a free market industry, its potency in our society makes ethical journalism a necessity. Although no law or mandate can ever force reporters to tell both sides of the story, we all feel the consequences when they don’t. The renewal of the Fairness Doctrine would greatly mitigate this issue, by presenting issues of controversy in a balanced fashion.

Biased reporting fractures the public. When a news station or paper begins to develop a slant, tending to present facts that favor one ideology, it naturally attracts readers and viewers with concurrent opinions and irritates those who disagree. Eventually, the corporation can develop a biased consumer base. This gradually changes the demographics that other news companies must market to, encouraging other sources to broadcast biased information as well.

The correlation between polarized media and polarized politics has become obvious in the last twenty years, as the number of independent voters declined sharply. In the 1984 election, nearly a third of Americans did not register under either of the two major parties. However, by 2004, 75 percent of voters registered under one of the two largest political parties, 43 percent as Republicans and 32 percent as Democrats. What happened in between? Well, for one thing, FOX broadcasting was launched in 1986, an early corporation pitched specifically to a conservative audience. Currently, over a million more people watch The O’Reilly Factor than read The New York Times. However, even news outlets that do not explicitly advertise to a specific ideology often have biased reporting implicitly. The New York Times, for example, wrote 171 articles on the last two months of the Barack Obama presidential campaign. It ran 33 on John McCain’s campaign during the same period.

It isn’t only in terms of political polarization that the lack of a simple fairness in the press has caused damage. It is also in the quality of information that is distributed. It is common sense that you are less likely to question facts that support your opinions. Multiply that by the 150 million Americans who watch television news daily and 120 million who read the paper, and mass delusions can emerge.

In recent years the cost of flawed reporting has proved especially salient. For example, prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, many news outlets reported that Saddam Hussein was producing weapons of mass destruction and that he had ties to Al Qaeda. Five years after the invasion, however, no weapons had been found and all ties to Al Qaeda had been completely discredited. Nonetheless, 50 percent of Americans still believed that the weapons existed and 64 percent believed that Hussein was funding terrorism. The Iraq war has so far cost over $665 billion, wounded 31,230 soldiers and killed 4,280 soldiers, largely based on a threat that did not exist. It is time that our press did something patriotic and told the truth. It is imperative that the members of the press view themselves not just as business people offering a product, but also as shapers of public ideals. A divided nation cannot survive. Neither can a deceived one.