NYU professor Mitchell Stephens’ recent article in “Politico” is headlined “Goodbye Nonpartisan Journalism. And Good Riddance.” Stephens says that “journalism in the United States was born partisan and remained, for much of its history, loud, boisterous and combative. He says that this changed in the 1930s and 40s beginning with influential radio newsman Lowell Thomas who “intuited that the best way to hold [his] large audience was to avoid excessively offending any major political group. He tried to play it, as he put it, ‘down the middle’ ... “And Thomas’ main successors in the role of national newsmen—David Brinkley, Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw—aimed for somewhere around “the middle” too.