Journalists have a rule. They are not allowed to say anything more damaging to one side than to the other. If they did, they would look as if (HORRRORRRSSS) they had an opinion, and could actually think. And NOTHING, Dear Friends, gets you in MORE TROUBLE than thinking as a journalist.
Time after time, during the campaign, Cheney would lay some ENOURMOUS GOOBER of a lie on the table, and Edwards would tell a tiny fib. So, what is the headline? "Each candidate lied during the debate."
During a debate on evolution, there may be 100,000 biologists on the evolution side and 2 (from Wacko Madrassa Christian College) who are creationists. Each side gets EXACTLY the same amount of space. It's insane.
If there was a debate on gravity, and one side said "it's a myth", the journalistic ethos would state that both sides had a point of view.
I have started to call journalists on this. When you see this kind of bias, email them.
Here's a good example:
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/
This bloviation of a blog is an absolutely content free take on the budget. Here's a sample:
The human ability to discern patterns enables us to see that in every case the true cost of something is underreported. We get lied to. The concept of truth in advertising has yet to reach the nation's capital. Politicians of both major parties find it easy to spend money and extremely hard to raise the taxes to pay the bill.
This is simply a false and totally irresponsible equating of both parties.
Email Mr. Achenbach. Get journalists to start thinking and making judgements.