When a highly respected national newspaper prints a story or television anchor reports a story, it has the potential to influence millions of people. Readers assume that reporters get and report stories fairly, but those of us in the journalism industry know this simply isn't always true.

There are infinite ways to apply veneers to underresearched, underdeveloped, and biased stories. Some reporters learn to throw out stories with little substance, that are short on facts and long on innuendo that manage to pass the inspection of editors and readers.

Why do they do it? Power. It's fun to invoke the thunderous name of one's publication for instant respect. It's fun to watch people squirm as if one were the almighty right hand of God brought to this earth to smite the unworthy. It's fun to topple people and institutions as easily as Godzilla knocks over office buildings.

How do they get away with it? Ignorance. Reporters often must rely on the ignorance of others so that they are unquestioned. They rely on their own ignorance so their consciences don't bother them. They ignore ethics for the "greater good," whomever that may be. Whatever helps them sleep at night.

If reporters don't know how to get, don't have time to get, or fail to include pertinent facts, their stories can be biased. Readers often won't know the difference, but biased stories can have devastating consequences on individuals and companies. While some people richly deserve to be skewered by the press, others don't. Yet the press is amazingly fickle about who it pursues.

Martha Stewart and her small-by-comparison sins are fair game. Curiously missing is a daily outcry from the press to put the largely unpunished stock-scandal CEOs and their henchmen behind bars. The press has failed to show sustained outrage over the scandals that have cost this country and its individual stockholders trillions. Is that because many media owners and politicians including many in the White House are "insiders," too?

One of the holy grails of the popular press is the protection of the consumer, which is a great idea if that doesn't conflict with other agendas. If consumers can get sufficiently outraged over something, that something can be made to change dramatically.

Just witness the 50 million Americans who have gotten behind the "No Call" rule.

Spurred on the popular press, plenty of consumers have expressed their frustration at getting hounded by solicitation phone calls during dinner. But glaring in its omission is any question by the press over why certain entities were allowed exemptions (phone companies, for example) while other businesses were barred.

If the popular press were really doing its job -- why aren't there more stories questioning how the exemptions were decided upon? Why should politicians and charitable organizations be allowed to ring interruptions to our dinners? Why was the list bullied through when state courts found constitutional objections? Why did the government hand off implementation of the no call list between branches to the point that we don't even know which branch truly has regulatory power over such a list -- if at all? Should there be the other exceptions to the list?

Can't consumers wait a little while these and other legal issues are sorted out? As long as any organization is allowed to make calls, then does "do not call" mean "do not call" or not? "No" is supposed to mean "no," isn't it?

But we heard little from the popular press asking these very valid questions because they could see the moving train of outrage on the part of consumers, and they were not about to jump in the way.

On the journalists' side, reporting is a little like landing a burning jet daily. There are constant pressures -- to be engaging enough to grow readership, to be credible and authoritative, and to be profitable. And sometimes those three worthy goals have conflicts. Why? The news rarely makes money by itself. It has to be subsidized by advertisers, company products, or affiliates, and those are the doors through which conflicts enter.

Does a story present an opportunity to build readership? Would fewer questions and more sensationalism accomplish that goal? Could higher profitability be attained by putting a cub reporter on the job? Those are the kinds of decisions and conflicts of interest that any journal or news program faces.

In the pursuit of a good story, especially one that can be milked for headlines over and over (remember the O.J. trial?), corners can get cut, rules can get bent, or journalistic integrity forfeited. If there is ever anyone who has to learn to work smarter, not harder, it is the deadline-driven reporter. That's why a money-train story like Martha Stewart facing jailtime is good for months of headlines. But what is the headline power of asking a few concerned questions about the constitutionality and legality of implementing a government-run no-call list that exempts some of the worst dinnertime offenders?

Leaving the hard questions unasked shouldn't be allowed. That's the risk of journalism. Sometimes you just have to make people mad, whether it's an insider-manned government hellbent on reelection, or consumers who haven't thought through why their government is spending millions implementing a no call policy that will likely prevent far less than the 80 percent of solicitation calls they are currently getting.

The problem is that next time anyone reads a news story, they may not be getting the whole story. A story may be calibrated to lean toward agreement with some kind of majority rule, whether it is the liberal left or the right wing agenda. It may boil down to what the reporter personally feels is right and wrong. Or what the editor wants to sensationalize. Anything but getting to the real core of the story.

But unless reporters ask the questions that make editors uncomfortable, that may cause consumers discomfort, then they aren't really reporting the news. They are simply massaging it.