It is OK to be biased, it is very bad to lie.

By Anatoly O. 07.29.2003

There is a lot of noise about media bias, and almost silence about American media having an obligation to inform population. Instead, media lies and nobody is accountable.

Truth
Conformity with fact, agreement with reality, accuracy, correctness.
J. YOUNG Lect. Intell. Philos. xxxviii. (1835): "Truth is the agreement of our ideas and words with the nature of things."

Lie
An untrue or inaccurate statementthat may or may not be believed true by the speaker.

Right
Correct, proper, agreeing with facts, true.

Wrong
Not in consonance with facts or truth, incorrect, false, mistaken, fictitious, unreal.

Opinion
A view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter.

Two examples:

1. In OBITUARIES (NYT, June 6, 2003), "Natalya Reshetovskaya, Solzhenitsyn's Wife Who Questioned 'Gulag,' Dies at 84" by PAUL LEWIS:

"In 1941, he was sent to fight the Germans as an artillery officer. That same year he was arrested for criticizing Stalin's war strategy."
The first sentence is a lie.  In the second sentence, first part is also a lie, and the second part is an opinion.

http://www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/1970/solzhenitsyn-autobio.html:
"Because of my mathematical knowledge, I was transferred to an artillery school, from which, after a crash course, I passed out in November 1942. Immediately after this I was put in command of an artillery-position-finding company, and in this capacity, served, without a break, right in the front line until I was arrested in February 1945."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn (Autobiography):
"I was arrested on the grounds of what the censorship had found during the years 1944-45 in my correspondence with a school friend, mainly because of certain disrespectful remarks about Stalin, although we referred to him in disguised terms."

2. JFK killed himself for the sake of his family.
The first part of the sentence is a lie. He was killed. The second part of the sentence is opinion based on:
Medical files show that JFK had suffered health problems American voters had never known. Kennedy created a false image of ease, health and vigor. It was a sinister cover-up. John Kennedy’s severe medical problems started at age 13. He suffered from ulcerative colitis, which his doctors treated with steroids. The steroids, new in the 1930s, caused a stomach ulcer, and were the root of his back problems, causing osteoporosis of the lumbar spine. In the first six months of his presidency alone, JFK suffered stomach, colon, and prostate problems, high fevers, occasional dehydration, abscesses, sleeplessness, and high cholesterol—in addition to his ongoing back and adrenal ailments!
Conclusion: If JFK had died from his illnesses, his legacy and political future of his clan would have been destroyed.