Ethos, Pathos, Logos & Politics?

Today I started doing local press clips. I began examining newspapers from the past couple of days in search of "Congressman Bill Flores." Luckily no one from the building had stolen our Sunday paper, so I had a good amount of papers to dissect. My task was to clip anything that mentioned the congressman's name. I carefully examined each and every article from sports to the classifieds, obviously knowing Mr. Flores's name would probably not be mentioned among high school baseball playoffs, but I wanted to be the awesome, meticulous intern that I am. After scanning through four papers, I realized that most of the mentions would be on the opinions page. Most commonly, the congressman's name appears in the "How your U.S. lawmakers voted" section. However, every once in a while, I came across one letter to the editor in which someone is referring to the congressman in a rather hostile manner. I found myself upset. As I have learned from my journalism classes, a journalist should be neutral, free of bias and have no conflict of interest. I realized that while I am not writing newspaper articles, it would be hard to be completely free of bias. Most people live their lives according to a set of beliefs or principles that guide and influence their thinking. To remain objective, one would almost have to write about something they find absolutely uninteresting in order to remain completely neutral.


 I realized just how hard it must be for press secretaries to pick up or brose any type of media for the fear that their boss's name may be mentioned in less than honorable ways. Politics seems to be a topic that ruffles people's feathers and remains one of the big three things you should never discuss at the dinner table (sex, religion). I am beginning to ask myself how can politics be reported free of bias? Or rather, how should politics be reported? While the American people are provided with countless news outlets, all these seemingly unbiased sources are biased. From Fox News to CNN to The New York Times and The Druge Report, all seem to slant one direction. Can politics be reported neutrally when there are only two distinct sides?

Politics and journalism seem to make for an interesting and emotional cocktail.