Unless they are on the editorial pages, journalists are supposed to maintain an unbiased, apolitical stance so as to report without prejudice. Of course, that is the optimum and hardly ever happens any more

That is certainly my impression from what I've seen of American TV. So far that way of doing it has been held at bay with our news programmes here, most of the time anyway. But Rupert Murdoch is working at changing that and he's got friends in government. Or perhaps the word should be clients.