Sound bites have totally destroyed the credibility of the news media. The "rip and read" policy of the media means a few people control what the masses hear as "facts". Most of the media just reports "sensational stories" while stories like Enron have disappeared from the radar. Most of the commercial media waste their short time telling you what they are going to tell you after the next commercial and when they finally get to the big story of the evening you find that it wasn't worth waiting for. Is that the news media’s fault or are they just giving us what we want. Is that because most of us do not have a long enough attention span to listen to real news. Or maybe it is because most of us are so afraid of real news that we would rather hear what someone like President Clinton does in his spare time.
I would like the media to ask the questions "why does the listener need to know", and “If they do need to know, what can, or should, they do about it".
A reporter should always “have an opinion” about the news, and not just blindly "report the facts".
A reporter should look beyond “the facts” given to them by special interest groups, and attempt to get to the truth of a matter. I do not have the time or the resources to get news myself. I want to pick a reporter that I trust, to get the news for me.
I count on an intelligent reporter to be able to "change their opinion" based on the “real facts” they can glean from the resources they have available.
Create a web site called www.thinkingoutloud.com or www.newsthatmakesadifference.com
That would have a running account of stories so they could be updated over time to reflect a final outcome.