It’s time to talk about fake news. The phrase became en vogue during the presidential campaign of 2016, popularized by Donald Trump, and with good reason. There’s no doubt that media coverage of his campaign – and really of any conservative or Republican candidate – is, and generally has been, absurdly skewed.

Was there any point at which we could honestly look at journalism and hold it up as a bastion of objectivity? Probably not for a long time, if ever. Journalists are people, and just like any person have their own views on politics. When I was in grad school, Ted Galen Carpenter’s “The Captive Press,” was assigned reading for one of my classes. As Carpenter astutely pointed out, media objectivity is also tainted by the nearly parasitic relationship the media has with those in power. How many former government officials land on network news channels as “experts? How much of the reporting the media broadcasts relies on that exclusive? How much does “access” dictate how stories are written, and how much is access an enticement for the media to publish what those in power want, putting a spin on the news in order to lick the boots of their masters?

At the same time, the emergence of the 24-hour news cycle, the Internet, and global media access is driving competition among outlets to be first, to garner the most views, and to do so by tapping into the collective outrage of the masses, who by and large have access to mass amounts of information around the clock, and who many times are too lazy to verify before they screech. Yes, the media outlets need to tap into that in order to stay competitive in today’s market.

We also have the bloggers. Stoked by their successes in trumping the mainstream media from as far back as 2004, when guys in their “living rooms writing in their pajamas” exposed the asshattery of CBS and its false documents about George W. Bush’s military service, much to the consternation of snotty CBS execs, the bloggers have become a vital part of the information superhighway and the search for the truth. I doubt the discovery of the government’s failure in the “Fast and Furious” operation would have happened without the efforts of gun rights blogger David Codrea and the late Mike Vanderbaugh. Say what you want about bloggers not being “real” journalists, but they’ve contributed to the efforts to hold government officials accountable. And if you doubt me, look up Alexei Navalny. He was “just a blogger” too.