If we had "let the market decide" then there'd be no Fox News Channel, and no AEI, and no Weekly Standard.

-- sysprog

This is one of the more clueless statements I've seen in a while. Once the censorship of the "fairness" (how Orwellian) doctrine was removed, the market brought us lots of goodies. Interestingly, the market is less approving of the liberal newspapers and TV news. More interestingly, while you folks extoll the virtues of polls, the market works the same way. It just that it reflects where people are willing to put their money, rather than their mouth. Talk is cheap.

What real heroes you might ask? Not surprisingly, I don't know any either. Does that mean there aren't any? That's not possible, but we'll never know. The only picture we'll ever see of our soldiers is either in a box or via scandal and negative controversy. I'd say the press has done a very good job of presenting our efforts in the worst light possible, you should congratulate yourselves on becoming the surrender monkeys of the 21st Century. Harry Reid is now your standard bearer, and I would think "Peace at any price" the motto of your movement.

Meanwhile, the heroism of everyday and extraordinary circumstance shall pass you by, ignored in favor of cowardice. Indeed, the left is invested in defeat.

Jill Howell: There are now four journalists who have articulated this point of view and they have been consistent in stating the opposition party is responsible for challenging what the administration says; journalists have clearly abdicated this role.

Glenn: I couldn't agree more with everything you said.

Needless to say I don't. You can excoriate the MSM all you like (and they will remember), but the Moyers piece demonstrated plenty of cautionary dissent, and that nobody wanted to hear it. Certainly not the Democrat Senate. There is no way that the press can do other than inform itself and disseminate that knowledge. It can't force an opinion, it can't provide management, it can't lead a nation.... that's what our elected representatives are for. And where were they going? The other way. If Global Warming is true by virtue of a consensus of scientists, then WMDs were present by virtue of a consensus of politicians.

In fact the press was boxed in by the previous administration's assault on Iraq only three years earlier over WMDs. Did the press dissent then? No, IOKIYAD.

they believe (just as he said) that their duty is to pass along what each side said without regard to the truth -- just pass it along -- and they've then discharged their duty.

Well, yes. Anything else is opinion. The more facts available the better, but interpreting the facts is a much different deal. The general phobia around FOX news is a good example. People here hate FOX with a passion, yet I hear very few accusations of bad facts. Certainly less than the MSM in general. But so what? The context is noxious to the left, and that's what counts most.

There is no duty to investigate it, no duty to find out what is true -- they just repeat what they hear, from government officials and their secret sources, and that is it. And you're right -- it's the consistent explanation we've been hearing repeatedly from these national journalists in response to criticism.

So, let's see if I have this straight.... reporters should have what exactly? Know more about the real news on the ground and forcefully contradict the CIA and NSA? Tell Powell he was wrong? Flay the Democrats that pushed for war?

What should the press be doing now? Why don't they know what exactly is going on in Iran? How about interviewing Al-Qaeda? Is OBL still alive? What is required for the Iraq civil war to end? This is the sort of stuff you expected from the press in 2002 right? You know, I didn't hear anything about Eason Jordan and CNN softballing Saddam to maintain access. Hmmm.

You know what they say... if your adversary is digging a hole, don't intefere. Watching the liberal media, flog the liberal media, is only mildly entertaining. Now if the subject was the unbelievable tax receipts, rather than navel gazing from the inside out, you'd have something. Even Hugh Grant getting arrested for possession of baked beans is more interesting.

Sadly nothing will come of all this sackcloth and ash. No standards will be issued, no procedures refined, no clarion call to get into the trenches resounds. SSDD.

Fluffy

No, anything else is not "opinion"; most politically hot issues hinge on facts that are rarely well described in MSM print articles, much less on the TV. Simple, straightforward presentation of facts is detested by politicians of both stripes because they interfere with spin. That is why facts matter.

Yes, everything else is opinion. There is no such thing as a semi-fact. You even make my case by decrying FOX's presentation of facts, describing it as opinionated.

I still expect this level of coverage.

Then why do you people waste time pointing fingers at the past rather than pushing for a better present. The former doesn't do much to produce the latter. Mea Culpas don't feed the cat, and inquisitions merely freeze initiative. In other words, Moyers has 20-20 hindsight. So what? Has it made anyone safer or better informed? No. Like liberals everywhere Moyers has found someone to scold, and considered his job done. Big whoop.

Really? How odd. I watched them, and their employer CNN,

Not on Moyers show you didn't, and that's something he conveniently left out along with all the instances where the press submarined it's credibility. In fact this whole exercise is just another reason not to trust the press, In a complicated world, that is the final issue. When presented with conflicting information who are you going to trust? Moyers has just put a big exclamation point on saying - not the press!