Lewis, thank you for your unrelenting faith in the intelligence and character of your news audience — and in humanity generally. This is the attitude that seems to me most essential for getting us out of the fix we’re in.

As for objectivity, I think your reports of its death are greatly exaggerated! Let me offer the touchstone quote that anchors the meaning of this word in my own mind. It’s from Donald T. Campbell’s Chapter II titled ‘Evolutionary Epistemology’ in Radnitzky G, Bartley WW, Popper KR, eds. Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge. La Salle [Ill.]: Open Court; 1987. (p. 85)

For both Popper and the present writer the goal of objectivity in science is a noble one, and dearly to be cherished. It is in true worship of this goal that we remind ourselves that our current views of reality are partial and imperfect. We recoil at a view of science which recommends we give up the search for ultimate truth and settle for practical computational recipes making no pretense at truly describing a real world.
— Donald T. Campbell

I think that same goal remains worthy and productive in truth-pursuing activities (including journalism) that don’t fall within the customary boundaries of ‘science’. Objectivity in no way leaves marginalized groups out in the cold. Consider for example, the objective evidence available to disrupt old (wrong) ideas about sex as a binary variable: http://www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943

Best Regards!