Liberaler conservative, male or female, young or old, Americans love to bash the news

media.

Once among the nation's most trusted institutions, the news media have fallen from grace.

According to Gallup, even as recently as 2000, a majority of Americans trusted the press.

By 2015, it had fallen to 40 percent, and lower than that, 36 percent among those 18

to 49.

It's hard to see how this decline will be reversed.

The industry has become politically polarized, and in the highly competitive age of multiple

24-hour cable news channels in the internet, it's under severe financial pressure.

And this compounds an even deeper problem, failing journalistic standards.

In the 1950s, the media universe consisted mainly of a few national television broadcast networks

and local TV and radio stations, most of which got much of their news from major wire

services in the nation's large newspapers.

Most journalists were committed to producing objective journalism, fact-based stories independent

of the government and of political parties.

A reporter's job was to report, not offer opinion or advocate.

Presented with the facts, it was up to readers to make their own judgments about news events.

Opinions were supposed to be confined to editorial and op-ed pages.

That world no longer exists.

This lack of objectivity and the decline of standards is one reason, though not the only

one, why newspapers and news magazines are a declining industry.

According to Pew Research, print revenue from newspaper sales has declined from $47

...