A thought about balance in the media

I quote from "Scientists vs farmers? How the media threw the climate ‘debate’ off balance" by Natalie Latter:

In Britain, for example, the BBC has determined that it no longer has to present “both sides of the story” on climate change. It considers the science is settled, and not up for debate. 

But in Australia, the idea persists that “balance” is achieved by giving a large portion of media space to sceptics.

Latter goes on to discuss the need to make policy based on the best information and the problem in Australia that instead of debating the best policy to meet the challenge of greenhouse gas emission people there are instead debating which is the best information -- a question that is really already settled in the most knowledgeable community, that of the scientists.

Source

Here in the United States the media is I fear more like that of Australia than Britain. Informing the public does not require airing the opinions of cranks when they challenge the conventional wisdom, but it does require airing the opinions of experts when they challenge the opinions of cranks. You may ask why cranks get air time, but when they are candidates for major offices or supported by big money, that happens. But when it does happen, the media should correct their misinterpretations of reality.

Perhaps more of a problem is the failure of the media to focus on the important in favor of the entertaining. There are something like 16,000 murders in the United States per year, and in the last decade none by Muslim terrorists. There are some 42,000 deaths in traffic accidents per year. You would never realize the differences in the importance of these problems by attending to the media.

Supposedly we are losing editorial judgment in the rise of the Internet, but I don't see that the editorial input has been as much in disseminating the important as in disseminating candy for the mind that draws audience.