With all the talk of ‘fake news’ and the “lying” media, it would seem many people don’t think the media is doing its job. Perception of the media seems to depend on the source, with a poll from FOX News showing that more voters trust the Trump administration over the media as a whole, while another poll from Quinnipiac seems to indicate the opposite. Lines seem to have been drawn over where voters get their news. There is a clear conservative bubble in which voters get their information from FOX News, Breitbart, and talk radio (like Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin), and the farther right get their information from Infowars and Reddit threads. Likewise, the left suffers from a bubble of its own with many getting their news solely from MSNBC, Huffington Post and Salon, among others. Many sources exist that aren’t clearly partisan, like NPR, AP and foreign news services like BBC.

While some of the sentiments regarding the media and any potential bias are real, my contention is that the news media is starting to do its job once again. Maybe it was when President Trump called them the enemy of the people, or maybe it was when he leveled wild accusations, like 3 million people voting illegally for Hillary Clinton, or that Barack Obama personally ordered a wiretapping operation of Trump Tower (likely influenced by a dubious Breitbart article). Regardless, the news channels and papers have devoted much more time to caring about potential scandals and clear falsehoods. I will absolutely concede to conservatives that many times the media hadn’t done its job the past 8 years (you could argue much longer than that). Scandals like the Fast and Furious operation in Mexico that ended up getting people killed was brushed over quickly by many news outlets, expansion of US military operations in areas like Yemen were not widely reported, and the media engaged in sensationalism way more often than it should have: like when Don Lemon seriously proposed, on live TV, that a black hole could be responsible for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.

I classify myself as a political junkie and I’ve been glued to the TV screen since the 2016 election began, so much so that I think I’ve damaged my eyesight from staring at screens. I’ve seen several journalists who’ve stood out and shined this past year. Jake Tapper at CNN has done an outstanding job of holding political officials to account in an unbiased way, he’s also done some work in support of American service men and women. Reporters like Christopher Hayes on MSNBC, who broke reports about the DHS expansion of immigrant detention centers, also highlights solid journalism. FOX News also has some bright journalistic stars, Chris Wallace has been widely recognized as an unbiased and fair source of information on the network, as well as presiding over one of the presidential debates. Shepard Smith regularly sets the record straight on his show, and some of his monologues have become viral across the Internet. Many others have stepped up to the plate to hold the White House to account, and I’d be here forever if I named them all.

Since we’re dealing with a White House that has a very contentious relationship with reality, it’s good to see many in the media taking a stand for truth and relaying the facts. Unless President Trump changes his act, the media will have to do more work in keeping the facts straight rather than letting politicians run with talking points. While it certainly was relaxed during the Obama administration, the news media is finally starting to take its job seriously again. Better late than never.