According to Dee Rambeau, July is Media Orchard’s “Pick on Fox News” month — so since July is almost over, I thought I’d better get in one last lick.

This may be hard for people who have never been journalists to understand, but I do not dislike Fox News because my politics are left of Roger Ailes’. I dislike Fox News because it undermines the efforts of all journalists who work hard to be objective in their coverage of the day’s events.

Ailes smirks that Fox News is “Fair and Balanced” when everyone at that network knows that it has a political agenda that comes down from on high. That smirk not only makes Fox News a liar — it also mocks the integrity of all journalists who have committed their lives and careers to the ideals of objective journalism.

Let me explain something to those of you who have never been reporters; for most journalists, integrity is everything. Say what you will about reporters’ ethics, but I know from experience that you’ll hear more serious discussion of ethical questions in a newsroom than you’ll ever hear in a boardroom. Most reporters care passionately about what they do — and just as passionately about doing it right.

Journalists, in general, don’t enter the profession to make money. If money were their goal, they would apply their college educations and insatiable curiosity in more profitable directions — such as becoming political operatives.

Young people enter journalism, for the most part, because they want to make a difference. Their egos are fed not by the money they make, but by the impact they have. Journalists have impact by covering controversy and causing change. If change is anti-conservative — in the true sense of the word “conservative” — it is not anti-Republican.

Republicans and Democrats have worked together peacefully and productively in newsrooms for years, because they have always used the same rulebook. When I was a reporter in Lynchburg, Va., I remember covering a series of stories on a politically charged issue with a reporter who was as Republican as they come. I don’t think we discussed our personal politics once while writing that series — because we both were more committed to the discipline of journalism than to our politics.

While more individual journalists may tend to hold so-called “liberal” views than so-called “conservative” views, none of Fox News’ competitors — not CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN or MSNBC — issues dictates from the executive suite about how stories should be covered. Only Fox News does that. None of Fox News’ competitors has a political filter for hiring talent. Only Fox News has that.

That’s why “Fair and Balanced” is an example of the Big Lie. And why all of us — no matter our politics — should be a little bothered by that. It’s certainly why virtually all journalists who take objectivity seriously dislike Fox News.

One last point: This phenomenon works both ways. I once worked at an alternative weekly — one with its own set of political views. In that setting, I was the staff “conservative.” I once wrote an article that the chain’s editorial chief thought was too “conservative” in tone, and — in so many words — he told me as much.

Having been trained in daily newspaper newsrooms — where it was about what you learned from your reporting, not what you believed beforehand — I was shocked by the complaint. It wasn’t long before I left that alt weekly.

So when I knock Fox News, it’s not because I worry about its politics. No, I worry that the ratings success of Fox News will undermine the profession of journalism generally in the public’s mind, so that any reporter who endeavors to cover stories objectively will be greeted with a Roger Ailes-inspired smirk.