My little brother is a journalist (managing editor of a group of small-town weeklies in southern Wisconsin) and his take on it is that editorial independence is threatened in most commerical outlets, even the tiny ones. Granted, his news subjects don't take on the importance of war or national economics, but the impact of deviating from the editorial leaning of the publisher is felt, nonetheless. Corporate influence appears often to overcome any inherent journalistic integrity that may still be lingering from school or wherever else the reporter learned her or his craft. The reporter who "tells it like it is" can very easily be risking a career.