"Journalists are merely professional scribblers, they are beholden to their masters. "
They can be if that's what their masters demand - the siign of a good paper, for me, is one who doesn't make such demands, wwhich iss why I believe the most retrograde step taken by journalism is to allow much of the press to fall into the hands of Megalomanic Murdoch
This is a far too simplistic view of journalism in my opinion

I was always intrigued by gestures of 'balance' made by some of the most extreme of them
The Daily Mail once gave a regular column to the lesser known Behan brother, Brian, a devout Trotskyist - his articles were a joy to read, almost worth buying the paper for, (but not quite)   
We once met him in a pub in Manchester and asked him about writing for a rag like the Mail
He grinned and replied, "I have never been nearer to the Tory Party than I am now"
I seem to remember that Left-Wing journalist, Paul Foot ahd a column in an equally right-wing paper
Jim Carroll
Jim Carroll