has the media manipulated their ultimate (and seemingly impartial) goal as the fourth estate?

Certain news outlets express certain ideas and inclinations in the tone in which their works are produced, (such as the News Ltd./Murdoch media corporations demonstrating an overbearing conservative frame of mind amongst all of their publications online and in newspapers) occasionally to the extent that they may appear to have a vendetta against a certain faction in the government or ideology of a party.

This deviation from strictly following reportings of the government or even the monarch derives from the prescribed role of the media as the "fourth estate". This idea was formed in the Victorian Era when a politician of the time, Edmund Burke, stated in parliament that the media was to fulfill the role of acting as an entity that was separate from the rest of society, one that should act as a "watch dog" in the way that it was to monitor the happenings and actions of the aforementioned bodies and to report openly to the public. This worked to ensure that everything was entirely transparent, so as to provide a fully-functioning and efficient government for the people.


This role of the media to act as the fourth estate of society has taken many different angles since its introduction here but nothing has had a greater influence over it than commercial power. Commercial power has allowed for many sways of the tone of contemporary journalists, in particular to write in a way that conforms to the interests of its owners; one recent example of this that was brought to the public's attention by the ABC's Media Watch is that of The Australian who were consistently bathing the Greens in a negative light. This newspaper is owned by News Ltd., a company known for its conservative and even pro-liberal views - most likely as it is another under the helm of Rupert Murdoch.
This instance is rather ironic as Media Watch essentially had to 'play' as the fourth estate to demonstrate another news outlet as failing to have done so.

Another key reason for the failure of the fourth estate is the rise in concern for governments to maintain respectable levels of public relations, and the subsequent enhancements in their ability to remain secretive. Such a concern has made the need for such external entities all the more poignant however many secrets are guarded high up in the ranks of government officials.
With the advent of the internet - and the further evolution to produce the concept of Web 2.0 which allows for any user to contribute - the free flow of information has skyrocketed allowing for whistle-blower websites such as Wikileaks to flourish.
One notable instance of Wikileaks' power to expose and make transparent where would not otherwise be the case is the recent release of videos that show a soldier in Iraq negligently shooting and killing civilians from a helicopter - all very light-heartedly. These videos were highly-confidential and first needed to be unencrypted however since their release, it was revealed that they were more than 2 years old and no action had been taken.




Since the time of the helicopter video release, a public prosecution has been initiated on the soldier in charge of shooting the civilians implicating him for their murders - an outcome that would not have been likely sans the release of the tapes demonstrating not only the effectiveness of the fourth estate, but also that it remains a relevant concept even after the many evolutions that the media has undertaken since its introduction.