You do a good job of providing an ongoing list of examples of media incompetence, but it would be interesting to see a succinct definition of the problem and possible solutions to improve media performance.

This is not to say that you haven't done as much, but a succint accounting of why the media is in such poor shape and real changes that could address the issue would be interesting.

For example, as a writer and former journalist I can see three areas that should be resolved.

The first is that we seem to have a pipeline for creating journalists where they go to the right schools and develop the right connections so that they almost graduate into high level jobs and media outlets without any real-world experience (paying their dues) and mentoring.

For example, there is a lack of journalists with degrees or expertise in the subjects they cover other than having cut their teeth on the issues as they have covered politics or economics or what have you. They lack political science or law degrees or training in economics and they have no experience in these matters to truly understand the complexities of policy development, policy advocacy, elections and etc (consider your own professional experience before becoming a writer). Further, when I consider the careers of journalist I admire, nearly all of them worked their way up from smaller media outlets from a relatively young age learning the trade/profession from experienced editors and reporter long before entering the national scene (wasn't it John dickerson who initially "inherited his job at Time or Newsweek from his mother?).

Second, the seperation between the business side of media outlets and the editorial side seems to have evaporated if not disapeared. Journalistic performance and pay alomost seems to be based on the degree to which they can justify their ability to bring in readers and revenue as opposed to the depth of their professionalism. This promotes a sensationalist mentality that has led to an utter disaperience of proportion. (I found Broder's comment on proportionality immensly interesting because he gets it precisely wrong. Lying about a blow job does not nearly equate to lying about the need for a war leading to the deaths of 100s of thousands of people.) Therefore, rather than a substantive debate withion the Democratic primary on, for example, the merits of mandating health coverage or not, which is a huge policy difference and issue between Obama and Clinton as well as within people who truly understand healthcare issues, we got a lot of very poor coverage on race and gender.

This leads to the question of how do we foster an attitude in this new media age where speed to print (defined by beating the competitor by minutes or even seconds) and the drive for more Web hits is moderated by the drive to be the first to get the story right as opposed to the first to publish. There are many examples within the primary, and there will be many more as the campaign continues where bad information, rumor and etc. are rushed to publication without a full examination as to accuracy and context. And then this bad repoting becomes part of the dialogue and ends up being taken for fact.

As an example from eight years ago, Gore never said he invented the Internet. It was a misquote, but it took on a life of its own and is routinely cited as a fact.

Anyway, you may have done this already, but a succinct explanation of what is wrong, and then real steps to make improvements would be of great interest.

And Fox News is borish, highly slanted, propoganda peddling and etc.

But Fox News is not what's wrong with journalism, it merely exemplifies the symptoms in a way that lefties and Democrats can get excised about.

The fact is that biased media--whether its O'Reilly or Olberman--is poisoning politics in this country and pushing people further and further apart.

People, the audience that is, needs to uniformly reject propaganda no matter its source or if it agrees with a preconceived point of view. Olberman and liberal bias gets us no closer to the truth and what needs to be done from a policy point of view to answer some very serious issues in this country.

If we don't have the right facts, we can't create the right answers.

Obama has gone back on a promise to support campaign finance reform and the first time he has a chance to put actions behind those words he goes back on a promise to take public financing.

McCain on the other hand is standing by his pledge and sticking with public financing.

Obama has let us down a bit here. I also don't agree with alex's rationalization that standing by espoused principles is wrong and that opting for the cash is always the better path.

I also am amazed at how the hardcore of Obama supporters cannot stand any truth telling when it comes to their candidate. It takes courage to tell truth to power, and now Obama supporters. If people are to hold Obama accountable, how can we do that if we ignore any information we simply don't want to hear.

Get over it. Obama is imperfect and not the saint you had hoped for.

been dedicating my daily donations to the local sewage treatment plant in honor of GW.

I agree that naming the plant after him would be more than he deserves.

why Clinton wouldn't be all too excited.

After all, he and his wife have done more for this country and the Democratic party thany any two people since Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and then 51 percent of the party takes a giant Bush (see previous War Room post on the treatment plant) on them.