I agree.

I run TakeOnIt, a database of opinions of experts and influencers, where the opinions (in the form of quotes) can be labeled with "pitches". Pitches are persuasion patterns, kinda like the tv-tropes of argumentation. One of my goals is to help people become aware of these persuasion patterns. Or to put in another way, give people a procedure for disentangling pitches from facts. You can see the pitches here. I introduced the concept on Less Wrong a little while ago, not with the word "pitch", but with a terrible name that I shall never speak of again.

On a separate note, David Foster Wallace has a great piece of journalism that covers this concept in an analysis of the political talk radio industry, here.

...it is increasingly hard to determine which sources to pay attention to and how exactly to distinguish real information from spin. ...This fragmentation and confusion have helped give rise to what's variously called the "meta-media" or "explaining industry." Under most classifications, this category includes media critics for news dailies, certain high-end magazines, panel shows like CNN's Reliable Sources, media-watch blogs like instapundit.com and talkingpointsmemo.com, and a large percentage of political talk radio. It is no accident that one of the signature lines Mr. Ziegler likes to deliver over his opening bumper music at :06 is "… the show where we take a look at the news of the day, we provide you the facts, and then we give you the truth." For this is how much of contemporary political talk radio understands its function: to explore the day's news in a depth and detail that other media do not, and to interpret, analyze, and explain that news.

Which all sounds great, except of course "explaining" the news really means editorializing, infusing the actual events of the day with the host's own opinions. And here is where the real controversy starts, because these opinions are, as just one person's opinions, exempt from strict journalistic standards of truthfulness, probity, etc., and yet they are often delivered by the talk-radio host not as opinions but as revealed truths, truths intentionally ignored or suppressed by a "mainstream press" that's "biased" in favor of liberal interests. This is, at any rate, the rhetorical template for Rush Limbaugh's program, on which most syndicated and large-market political talk radio is modeled...

Yes, thank you, that's a useful distinction. Funny, how I hadn't thought of mixing the levels once they'd been neatly labeled and described. Something to watch out for.