Matt Hadro writes at Newsbusters:

On Wednesday's Around the World, CNN's Suzanne Malveaux admitted that the Obama administration has lost some media "support," noting "tension" between the White House and the press corps.

It is a step forward if indeed the Obama White House "has lost some media 'support'."

Having said that, we must also point out that journalism per se is not about supporting -- or not supporting -- a particular White House or administration. Rather, it is about facts and about holding people and power accountable in a free society.

This applies to the Obamas of the world, the Bushes of the world, and the Reagans of the world.

It is therefore a sign of the principial, structural corruption of the press's self-understanding that one can even talk about the possibility of a White House losing support among reporters. 

Support or non-support should be a non-issue, for every properly self-respecting journalist should understand that his professional commitment limits his personal associations among politicians and others he might cover in reporting the news.

You don't become a journalist to become friends, allies, or cobelligerents with those whom you are supposed to be covering.

Rather, you become a journalist because you are passionately committed to truth based on factual evidence.

Your job as a reporter is to report the facts, and follow the facts, wherever they might lead.

This is true across the board, whether one is reporting on political leaders, captains of industry, entertainment personalities, academic elites, agents of social change, or Christian celebrities. 

Excellence in the pursuit of fact-based reporting is the principial mainstream of journalism.

To act outside of this mainstream is to court extremism under the flag of journalism. It is a false flag. Hence the term the "formerly mainstream media."

A free society welcomes excellence in journalism. Antagonists of freedom do not.

Related
CBS Anchor: "We Are Getting Big Stories Wrong, Over and Over Again" 
"Objective" Journalism and the Formerly Mainstream Media 
Obama DOJ "Secretly Obtained" Press Phone Records for Two Months