The answer is found in how “bias” is policed in the media: though political agents. Conservatives are the most obvious examples, whipping up outrage at supposed liberal bias in the media for years in an effort to discredit reporting that hurts their interests. This is one reason why the BBC is curbing its traditional “he said, she said” approach to climate change deniers.
Less visible are actors who support the war on drugs, a longstanding bipartisan project of domestic and foreign policy that naturally comes with a lavishly funded enforcement agency. This creates an enormous political constituency that is outraged at criticism of the status quo. As a result, there’s nothing easier than finding a pro-drug war “expert” who is more than willing to comment in your roundtable discussion of the issue.
Drug users themselves, on the other hand, are roundly despised and politically powerless, so they’re fair game for moralistic criticism.
Thus we see the problem with “objectivity” as practiced by the press: it merely restricts one’s moralizing to subjects without political power (or, as is often the case, foreigners).
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