Your perception:

“The only point I’d dispute is that of reporters seeing themselves as activists — I’ve never met a single one who does. People often don’t believe me when I say that, but it’s very much true. Words that some readers perceive as tilting a story are generally intended to offer better descriptions. ”

is fascinatingly self-referential.

Kinda like Archie Bunker saying “nobody I know is a bigot.”

I mean really-

IF *all* reporters are left-leaning (objective evidence supports this)

AND the journalism schools teach that “the proper role of the journalist is to change society for the better” (activism; and objective evidence supports this also)

THEN obviously, no journalist would perceive what they do as “left leaning activism;” even though EVERYBODY ELSE IN THE FREAKIN WORLD SEES THIS AS A TRUISM!

I mean, Sheesh!

In my (couple-three times a year) contacts with the “press” (various media), it invariably and painfully becomes obvious 5 minutes into the interview that the “reporter” [sic] has a “message” that they are trying to “convey” to the “uninformed” and that all they really want from my “expert opinion” are “facts” to support their “important message.”

“Vikings? There are no Vikings here! When we showed up, the village was already looted, pillaged, and on fire . . . “

Thanks for picking up my “morning driveway” comment.

My problem is that I get the local Austin paper, the thrice-weekly “Round Rock Leader,” a stack of magazines across a swath of topics and hundreds of RSS feeds on FeedDemon, plus links and insights on Twitter and the occasional email or snail mail that actually matters. During the day, I skim current headlines on a Yahoo homepage when I’m checking an email account there.

This is a bad time to be a 47-year-old news junkie, because I’m comfortable with all the means of delivery and I have a hard time saying NO to any of them.

What’s off the table? Television. I never watch it unless there’s a sports event, mostly hoops and NHRA drag racing. I haven’t regularly watched a series since “Seinfeld,” and there’s no great disturbance in the Force even though I’ve never seen “Sex and the City.”

I rarely watch online video or listen to podcasts, because you can’t skim them and are forced to go at the pace of the medium, whereas I can speed up or slow down/dig in with print.

I will always get the local paper, and at least a couple of news mags (currently “Newsweek” and “BusinessWeek.”) That’s how I was raised, and I like reading on paper better than a screen.

Plus, I put my money where my mouth is, and financially support those institutions that I cherish.

The only point I’d dispute is that of reporters seeing themselves as activists — I’ve never met a single one who does. People often don’t believe me when I say that, but it’s very much true. Words that some readers perceive as tilting a story are generally intended to offer better descriptions. At the end of that paragraph you came to the correct word — “unintentionally” — that best describes most apparent slant. That, or laziness.

The big issue, though, is that newspaper reporters need to be better in order to make our industry worth saving in the first place. We’ve spent a lot of time bellyaching about losing circulation, and not too much time giving an honest self-review of ways we ought to be improving.