U.S. News Becoming Too Politically Slanted, Visiting Journalism Scholar Argues

With the presidential election heating up, more Americans have been tuning into their favorite news broadcast for the most up-to-date reporting from the campaign trail. However, they might not be getting the whole truth, according to Paul Ramadge, former editor of The Age , one of Australia's most respected newspapers. On Oct. Ramadge ­- now a Vice-Chancellor's Fellow at Monash University in Melbourne - gave a talk titled "Truth, Knowledge, and Trust in the Media" at the School for International Relations and Pacific Studies' Deans Roundtable, where he discussed how partisan news reporting was distorting the cornerstone of quality journalism: the truth. The talk was part of Ramadge's residency as a fellow for IR/PS's Pacific Leadership Fellows Program. At the event, Ramadge said that from his observations the US media's coverage of the leaking of presidential candidate Mitt Romney's "47 percent" video had been distorted. He noted that coverage of the story on Fox News had been minimal while the story had been wallpapered on many broadcasts on MSNBC .