There isn’t much good to say about journalism in America today.  From Wanna-Be rags that wish they were important to the major TV networks and traditional “national newpapers, journalism has sunk to no more than liberal advocacy.

There are a few sparks left in the belly of the Fifth Estate, though.

Take the first REAL interview of a national Democrat – Joe Biden – by Florida TV Channel 9.  “Are you joking?” said Biden, who is Obama’s running mate. “No,” said WFTV’s Barbara West said.  DEE-licious!  Ms West even quoted Karl Marx and asked Uncle Joe if Obama was gonna turn America into a socialist state.

And what was the Obama campaign’s reaction?  They cut the TV station off from future interviews.

And then, there’s Orson Scott Card’s piece for Meridian Magazine:

Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.

This is a magnificent piece that is not only well written (traditional journalism), but honest and straight forward.  Writing primarily about the real story behind the current economic situation, Card writes:

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents.  Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension — so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link.  (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth.  That’s what you claim you do, when you accept people’s money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans.  You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Barbara West and Orson Card are my candidates for the Pulitizer.