[Jack Simth]

And I find it quite worrysome when someone's first response to something they don't like is that it should be illeagle. Sometimes they are correct - it should be illeagle to randomly shoot people on the street, to name a fairly obvious example - but the vast majority of those are already covered, and more often than not such reactions are a step towards a totalitarian state.

It's surprisingly difficult to not do so when attempting to advance a viewpoint (of whatever sort), and trying will usually water-down the presented viewpoint to the point where people will complain that it is "wishy-washy" or that the presenter "isn't really trying to make his case", and will usually end up convincing fewer people. It is much easier and more effective (in most circumstances) to present only one side of an argument.

Sure, it's possible to get someone who espouses the opposing view on stage as well and have a debate, but again, with both sides present, not as many people will be convinced. Many who honestly believe that their position is correct will find that quite unpalatable.

If those signing a reporter's paycheck (by whatever method, with a rather loose definition of reporter - a buisiness advertising in a newspaper, say - the buisiness is signing the paycheck, the newspaper counts as the reporter) have a position to send forth and the reporter is harming the sending of that position, then they are unlikely to continue to sign that paycheck, if there is an option that would appear to work better.

If it's any consolation, the news was, at one point, balanced within reason. It's just that, over time, those news centers which were reasonably balanced didn't get quite the funding that those news centers which were not quite so balanced did. So now, the massive news outlets are almost exclusively slanted to the same side. It's even gotten to the point where something that is reasonably balanced appears to be horribly slanted the other direction.

You can still find some reasonably balanced news sources - the only problem is they don't have much in the way of recources to gather news....