For one thing, newspapers work very hard to report things that are true, but they are less concerned with whether the overall impression from their reporting is a true impression. Shark attacks, for instance, happen very rarely. But if you report excitedly on every shark attack that happens, people will think they happen quite a bit. You haven’t told anyone any lies, but your stories aren’t leaving your readers with a true impression of the world.

Ezra Klein in The media’s Sarah Palin problem — and ours.