While I trained in journalism, I never wrote professionally and the training was an embarrasingly long time ago. Nothing you said in any way contradicts my intention except to pull a Homer Simpson by shrugging, "Yeah, but what can ya do?"

What you can do is to recognize that approaching any endevor without acknowledging the standards by which you judge yourself is worse than playing tennis without a net because journalism is not a game. No, pure objectivity is not a possibility but to shrug that off as if it were pointless to pursue would be a matter of abdicating a moral responsibility, both to yourself and to your readers.

I've often come across biased news stories, variously slanted, subtly, egregiously and everything in between. I assume the possibility and read accordingly. That might seem like an acknowledgement that it really doesn't matter if a standard existed or not.

But of course it does to anyone with a shred of self-respect and to their readers.