Poynter's Dr. Ink dissects the cliche that journalism should "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." The original quote from Finley Peter Dunne was actually complaining about how newspapers had too much power--not prescribing how they should function:

Th' newspaper does ivrything f'r us. It runs th' polis foorce an' th' banks, commands th' milishy, controls th'ligislachure, baptizes th' young, marries th' foolish, comforts th' afflicted, afflicts th' comfortable, buries th' dead an' roasts thim aftherward.

The afflicting scoop:
http://www.poynter.org/dr_ink/042402.htm