By John Ubaldi, “Ubaldi Reports”

One of the hallmarks of journalism is to be accurate, fair, and thorough without regard to bias in one’s reporting, but today’s journalists seem to have forgotten a key fundamental precept and that is to act without bias.

On Friday, Democratic candidate, former Vice President, Joe Biden, conducted one of his rare interviews with the press, but instead of engaging in tough questions on the various compelling issues of the day, the media resorted to asking softball questions.

The media then was ridiculed for how they handled the questioning of Biden, which was a far removed on how they have covered President Trump.

You would think that the media would relish the fact they finally have a chance to ask Biden poignant questions since he rarely holds press conferences or arranges interviews, unlike Trump’s sit-down interview with Fox News anchor Chris Wallace.

Biden still hasn’t accepted an interview with Chris Wallace, instead he only goes on shows like Rapper Cardi B or MSNBC Joy Reid where he knows he will not be asked tough questions. Like when she interviewed Biden in July, by asking him what he would do differently from Trump on handling the coronavirus.

Biden responded how he would handle the virus, but Reid never followed up that everything he proposed is exactly what Trump already has done or is currently doing.

Nor does Biden spar with the media like Trump does on a daily base with the Washington news press corps.

Instead of the media asking Biden after August jobs number showing an increase in jobs and a sharp reduction in the nation’s unemployment rate, how would raising taxes on individuals and corporations spur economic growth?

Maybe the media could have asked how would implementing his version of “The New Green Deal” reduce energy costs and increase jobs when in California it’s having the opposite effect.  Lost jobs, higher energy cost for low income and the minority communities to include people of color.

During the press conference Biden reiterated how Trump failed to hold Russia accountable for placing death bounties on U.S. service personnel in Afghanistan.  The media failed to even ask Biden on his facts when Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command “I found it very worrisome. I didn’t find that there was a causative link there.”

How come the media failed to ask Biden, when U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that Iran offered the Taliban bounties to kill American troops in Afghanistan, the Obama-Biden response was to reward Tehran with billions of dollars and lift economic sanctions.

No mention of this!

Nor did they press Biden on his remarks that Trump failed to protect U.S. elections from Russian interference.  No mention that the Obama-Biden administration failed to protect the 2016 U.S. elections from Russian interference even when they knew it was happening.

The Obama-Biden administration dismissed efforts by national security officials about Russian meddling between the periods of 2014-2016.  Nor was Biden pressed while serving as vice president that Obama suggested there was no way U.S. elections could be interfered with.

No questioning on this!

Instead the media has failed its profession and failed the American people by not asking Biden substantive questions about his policies. One of the tenets of ethical journalism is found in the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics where the mainstream media has failed to adhere to.

As journalists: should avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived. Disclose unavoidable conflicts.

One of the first questions asked by Atlantic staff writer Edward-Isaac Dovere on the bombshell report about President Trump making extremely disturbing comments about dead and wounded American military personnel. Even though there was no firsthand account all just unnamed sources.  No one was there when these alleged comments were made.

The question that followed was by CNN’s MJ Lee asking Biden about comments Trump made the night before about him.

CBS News correspondent Ed O’Keefe squeezed in two questions for Biden, the first of which asked what the former vice president thought of Trump’s supposed suggestion to voters that they should vote both by mail and in-person. The second question asked why Biden wasn’t “angrier” at Trump’s reported comments about the fallen soldiers.

Media critics reacted to the line of softball questioning with Fox News politics editor Chris Stirewalt calling them out on their “shamefully embarrassing” behavior.

“So seldom do reporters get to ask Joe Biden questions, so seldom do reporters — this is the second time really in quite a while … and that was shamefully embarrassing,” Stirewalt told “Outnumbered Overtime”. “I mean, there were two questions in there that maybe could have been considered adversarial but that was as bad as when Trump calls on some niche pro-Trump publication to ask him how magnificent his magnificence is.”

Stirewalt was amazed and continued to remark that, “I’m just sitting here listening thinking, ‘Don’t you want to know about his plans? Don’t you want to know about the controversy surrounding his plans? Don’t you want to know anything?'” Stirewalt exclaimed. “The closest we got to adversarial questioning was when they were asking him about whether he got his coronavirus test up his nose or whatever.”

This was a missed opportunity for the American people to know where Biden stands on key issues.  Wouldn’t the American people like to know how Biden would handle the riots plaguing American cities?

Biden routinely blames Trump how he has handled the riots considering his party wants to defund the Police. His vice-presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, has suggested she would be in favor of defunding the police. Biden wants to reallocate police resources to other community activities, but never stated what these are. The media never asked Biden how he would deal with the violence, since this is happening in Democratic cities.

Since Trump became president, the media has shown no pretense of being impartial violating almost every tenant of ethics in journalism. The Russian collusion narrative is a prime example.

For almost four years the media has run every salacious aspect of this and in the end Special Counsels Robert Mueller’s report showed no American had willingly or unwillingly cooperated or had coordinated with Russia. This includes Donald Trump, his presidential campaign or anyone in his administration.

It’s ironic that The New York Times and The Washington Post received the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for their Russian collusion narrative.

The award read, “For deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration.”

This was a lie!

Former Russian dissident Alexandr Solzhenitsyn summed up the state of today’s media while speaking at Harvard University in 1978.

“Here again, the main concern is not to infringe the letter of the law. There is no true moral responsibility for deformation or disproportion. What sort of responsibility does a journalist, or a newspaper have to his readers, or to his history — or to history? If they have misled public opinion or the government by inaccurate information or wrong conclusions, do we know of any cases of public recognition and rectification of such mistakes by the same journalist or the same newspaper? It hardly ever happens because it would damage sales. A nation may be the victim of such a mistake, but the journalist usually always gets away with it. One may — One may safely assume that he will start writing the opposite with renewed self-assurance.”

Two final statements in Solzhenitsyn remarks are worth noting, “How many hasty, immature, superficial, and misleading judgments are expressed every day, confusing readers, without any verification. The press — The press can both simulate public opinion and miseducate it. Thus, we may see terrorists described as heroes, or secret matters pertaining to one’s nation’s defense publicly revealed, or we may witness shameless intrusion on the privacy of well-known people under the slogan: “Everyone is entitled to know everything.” But this is a false slogan, characteristic of a false era. People also have the right not to know and it’s a much more valuable one. The right not to have their divine souls [stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk.] A person who works and leads a meaningful life does not need this excessive burdening flow of information.”

Finally, “Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic disease of the 20th century and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press. Such as it is, however, the press has become the greatest power within the Western countries, more powerful than the legislative power, the executive, and the judiciary. And one would then like to ask: By what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible? In the communist East a journalist is frankly appointed as a state official. But who has granted Western journalists their power, for how long a time, and with what prerogatives?”

The press as Solzhenitsyn commented has become not independent, but part of the state and an integral part of the Democratic Party.

The republic will lose the watchman against government by failing to curb abuse and corruption, but we now have the media drinking at the same through as our Democratic elected officials. American democracy will suffer for it!