Media "bias" - what if one side DESERVES more criticism?

I was chatting with a Hillary-supporting friend earlier who, like Hillary's staff, backers, and Hillary herself, can't keep complaining about the media coverage being (allegedly) more negative against Hillary than against Obama.  "It's not fair," complained my friend.  "There should be some rule that the network news has to run equal numbers of positive and negative stories for each candidate!"

This is one of the worst problems to come out of the modern cable news debate and news programs: the ludicrous notion that being "fair" means giving both sides of an issue equal say, equal time, and equal respect, regardless of whether one side is, through research and anaylsis, objectively superior to the other.  It is not "fair and balanced" to just let both sides have their say unchecked -- the truth is not neutral between two opposing positions.

It is not "fair" to give equal time and respect to global warming skeptics as to global warming proponents.  It is not "fair" to give equal time and respect to evolution deniers as to evolution supporters.  It is not "fair" to give equal time and respect to both sides of an issue when one side is clearly more supported and researched and established than another.  It is the media's job (at least, it used to be) to get to the bottom of the truth, no matter which side it helps or hurts.  The idea that networks have to balance every person critical of the Iraq war with a person glowingly optimistic about the Iraq war is one of the reasons a significant percentage of Americans -- a faaaaar higher percentage than most any other country -- still believes things are going well, and the net result is seeing McCain beating Clinton and tieing Obama in recent polls.

For political candidates, the same principal must apply.  The idea that there should be a "rule" that requires news organizations to balance their positive and negative coverage per candidate is ridiculous, because it doesn't allow for the possibility -- which is in fact a near-certainty -- that one candidate may do and say things more deserving of criticism than another.  When you see Hillary Clinton getting more negative coverage than Obama, why is your first instinct that the media must be biased?  Shouldn't the more likely scenario be that, oh, maybe Clinton has simply pulled more shit to be called out on??  

And yet, the media is still trying to self-correct, and so has to blow negative stories on Obama way way out of proportion in order to balance the time spent on negative stories on Clinton.  The net result is that the general public gets a "eh, they all suck" perspective, and can defend almost anything negative about anyone just by saying "well, your guy did crappy stuff, too."  Ugh.

When striking down the undemocratic and unconstitutional "Fairness Doctrine" (which, for the life of me, I cannot understand how even today, some supposed "Democrats" claim to support this revolting piece of anti-free speech filth), Justice Brennan wrote that the "chilling" doctrine, contrary to its stated Orwellian purpose, had "the net effect of reducing rather than enhancing speech."  Well of course it did.  Any time a news source, through their own rules or through outside pressure, tries to define "fairness" as being equally positive or negative to both sides, regardless of facts, it is ironically, by definition, holding a less balanced and less neutral point of view than if they were to just report the truth.  

So, no, I do not think there should be a "rule" that lets people or positions get equal treatment when they're clearly in the wrong, and I wish people would recognize at least the possibility that, if Obama's press coverage has allegedly been more positive, that it may not be a reflection of "bias" but simply because Obama happens to be an objectively better candidate.