You’re equating things that... just aren’t the same? Deutsche Welle and the BBC, for example, were set up and are continually monitored by somewhat functioning democracies. This grants them legitimacy, and also has the side effect of making goals, structures, and processes a matter of public knowledge.
That isn’t a minor difference. It’s the same mechanism by which the superficially similar action of child protective services is still fundamentally different from a child abductor.
Motives also matter: Encouraging people to vote is different from stoking frustration with democracy intended to discourage voting. You’re operating from some definition of democracy where all opinions are equal, and where any judgements of the merits is un-democratic “bias”. But that’s some sort of naive misunderstanding of democracy, sort of a perverted parody of postmodern relativism. Not only is it legitimate for journalists and others to operate on the assumption of the fundamental superiority of democracy vs authoritarianism, it is necessary for it to function.
That isn’t a minor difference. It’s the same mechanism by which the superficially similar action of child protective services is still fundamentally different from a child abductor.
Motives also matter: Encouraging people to vote is different from stoking frustration with democracy intended to discourage voting. You’re operating from some definition of democracy where all opinions are equal, and where any judgements of the merits is un-democratic “bias”. But that’s some sort of naive misunderstanding of democracy, sort of a perverted parody of postmodern relativism. Not only is it legitimate for journalists and others to operate on the assumption of the fundamental superiority of democracy vs authoritarianism, it is necessary for it to function.