Days into the new year, as stuffed suit Tony Dokoupil was readying to take the helm as the new anchor of the CBS Evening News, the network rolled out a much-mocked set of five guiding principles that went heavy on the sort of pseudo-intellectual fluff that’s long been a calling card of new editor in chief Bari Weiss.

Of this set of milquetoast slogans, what most drew public attention was the fourth pronouncement, which began with “We love America.” But what caught my eye was point three, which noted, “It’s our job to present you with the fullest picture—and the strongest voices on all sides of an issue. We trust you to make up your own minds.”

This seems like an explicit embrace of the so-called “view from nowhere” approach to journalism, a once-dominant strain that has lost cachet as it’s become clearer that it primarily serves powerful interests. I found this particularly telling in the context of the broader story of the right-wing billionaire David Ellison’s takeover of CBS News and the consolidation and cowing of this and other storied journalistic institutions. What was probably intended to sound like a bold statement instead had the distinct ring of capitulation.

In-depth reporting is difficult work. It’s not easy to unearth hidden information on the one hand and parse avalanches of it on the other—much of it offered in bad faith—on deadline, especially as newsrooms have shrunk in tandem with the growth and entrenchment of PR and spin. There are real dangers to hubris, too, and I think there’s good reason to approach most political actors and perspectives with some level of openness, if not exactly good faith, barring some obvious examples (e.g., open racists, though that seems like a lesson the media has to periodically........

© New Republic