Problem: Sometimes people tell the truth.

When one side is interested in promoting their agenda and the other side is interested in letting facts be submitted to a candid world, the resulting view is skewed toward the idea tainted by agenda rather than fair reporting. This causes two huge problems:

1) If a news reporting source were trying to give a balanced report, they would be "counter-balanced" by a more biased report, giving the public a tainted picture

2) Given that this paradigm of news consumption doesn't give the truth a fair shake, it encourages bias. While it is true that every source is biased, there are degrees to this, and setting up a system that blatantly favors extremism and opinionated propaganda is no way to get the truth out of the mainstream media.

Over the last week, we have seen a third problem come up because of this news-gathering tactic, which may be even more culturally detrimental than the previous two. When people feel the need to consider multiple venues of news coverage, it is necessarily because they believe that each of them is in someway incapable of delivering the honest truth second hand, and this has caused a natural distrust of reporting. Unfortunately, we, as Americans, do not distinguish between primary and secondary sources.

One would think that the old balance of right-wing news and left-wing news would become obsolete in a “CSPAN” age where the average American has access to the same first-hand information that reporters use to compile their stories. Instead, Americans look at the information-the unbiased “facts” of the case without interpretation-and immediately categorize it into “liberal fact” or “conservative fact.” We have lost the mental category of “objective information.” This would be like reading the transcripts of a senate floor debate, but still feeling the need to get Keith Olbermann’s take on something you saw for yourself!

Why do I bring all of this up now? Because General David H. Petraeus, who was recently confirmed by a unanimous Senate-including fifty democrats and one independent- is now being called a liar and a pawn of the Bush administration. It is not so infuriating that these claims are being made about a four-star General whose ribbon-rack looks like a full franchise of home-depot, as it is that the claims were made long before the General said a single word.

Our society, which does not understand that it is viewing first hand material, reacts as if General Petraeus were a talking head for an interpretive news organization. He is not. His words are the basic, inarguable facts to be interpreted.

In my opinion, the news reporter is close to obsolete. I would shed no tears if Brit Hume and Wolf Blitzer both signed off once and for all. Certainly, we can use thoughtful commentators who acknowledge themselves as such, but the age of spin reporting is over.

Attention CNN: I am literate.

I can read the after-action reports that the military makes available from centcom and I watch Senate hearings for myself. The age of the newsman is over.