What happens when the news media stops covering news objectively - and instead becomes a source of very specific opinions that serve a very narrow agenda?
For example - in the case of the democratic primary - consider the news coverage of the mere possibility of Vice President Joe Biden challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party's nomination for president.
Biden, of course, would be the sixth candidate in that race - one of whom who's beating Hillary in New Hampshire - and is within 7 points of her in Iowa.
That candidate, of course, is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
But if you've been listening to National Public Radio - or you've been reading the New York Times - you might not realize that Bernie Sanders isn't just a 'longshot socialist hopeful with unkempt white hair'.
And you might not realize that he's filled up and overflowed nearly every venue that he's spoken in since he announced - or that as his crowds are growing - so is his standing in the polls.
Which raises the question: why are two of the nation's most trusted news outlets largely ignoring - or marginalizing - Bernie's candidacy?
In the case of commercial media like the New York Times or the big TV networks, it could be that they're simply hostile to Bernie's message - that he wants to weaken corporate control over American democracy - and the corporate media really doesn't want voters to know about that.
But that doesn't explain how NPR - supposedly "public" radio - has managed to mischaracterize or ignore the biggest challenger to Hillary Clinton.
When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 and created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting - the law required that Corporation to operate with a "strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature."
Tragically, NPR appears to have forgotten that part of their charter.
