Besides all this, even if it were true that these media institutions were guided strictly by profit motives, is your solution to simply abandon any effort to impress upon them the very genuine and vital fact that the media fills a highly important role in our society and political system, a role manifested in the Bill of Rights and specifically extolled in the writings of the founders? Are we to simply give up, resign ourselves to media companies completely ignoring any sense of civic duty, and cease insisting that they behave responsibly and according to the standards they themselves insist they are following? -- DCLaw1

Beautifully said, DCLaw1.

'Giving up, resigning themselves to the private-interest-serving status quo, and refusing to insist that the media and Executive Branch leadership behave responsibly and according to the standards they themselves insist they are following' is exactly what the Congress of the United States is doing, of course, to the detriment of us all.

Most of these exposes of government wrongdoing essentially come down to the same question: "So?" Followed by the taunting words of the perpetrators to the American people: "Whatcha gonna do about it, suckers - huh? HUH?"

The fact is, in the cases demonstrating the grossest abuse of, and contempt for, the public trust by actors at the highest levels of our Executive Branch of government, only the check Constitutionally assigned to our Legislative Branch of government can be brought to bear to do something about it.

The Congress has the necessary tools and authority, and the capacity and the means to see that justice is done - and yet it will not deploy them on our behalf. The leaders of the party factions in Congress refuse to act, and their membership submits accordingly. The reasons for this inaction really don't matter any more, if they ever did. The fact remains that Congress as a whole simply refuses to exercise its power to fully expose and hold to account those who have demonstrated flagrant dereliction of duty, abuse of power and contempt for the rule of law in our Executive Branch of government. There's simply no excuse for that in a Constitutionally-ordered nation.

The New York Times intones today:

"At this point it seems that getting answers will have to wait, at least, for a new Congress and a new president. Ideally, there would be both truth and accountability. At the very minimum the public needs the full truth.

Why? What makes anything easier about "getting answers" next year, with a Democratic president desperate to prove him or herself to a public foundering in an economic wasteland, and doubtless the same "leaders" atop Congress?

There likely won't be a 'filibuster-proof' Senate majority next year either, so the apologists' 60-vote excuse for Democratic inaction on Republican-opposed initiatives will remain, freshly invigorated by an opposition now incentivized to sabotage a (likely) Democratic presidency.

Some of our citizens aren't waiting around, to the tune of $10 BILLION a month and untold Iraqi and American lives; I understand that Attorney (and former SLC Mayor) Rocky Anderson will be meeting with HJC Chair John Conyers this Tuesday, as he and his co-signers continue their lonely struggle to refocus Congress on respecting, and enforcing the rule of, our Constitution:

http://restoreruleoflaw.com/

As for the Pentagon PR operatives in the media: They are now apparently only one vote (which would make 60 to overcome a Republican hold) in the Senate away from becoming the beneficiaries of a 'golden shield' that will exempt their parent corporations from the searches for truth conducted by our justice system. Beneficiaries of a golden "reporter's shield" law that will sanctify all of their closely-held leaks from openly-contemptuous-of-our-Constitution "MindWar" practitioners in our Pentagon, and elsewhere in government, whenever and wherever they want to go 'anonymous' through their corporate media mouthpieces, to out a CIA spy or just to disseminate some more "classified" lies.

Appalling? Arrogant? Perhaps some of us take the legal system for granted, but the fact is that the legal system crumbles if people with relevant information about illegal acts do not testify -- truthfully.

.

For a court, the issue is not about good journalistic practice. It is about the search for truth, which is a practical necessity for doing justice.

[snip]

Still, journalistic demands for a federal shield law continue, and the big media lobby should never be underestimated. ..snip.. I propose four questions senators should ask the media to answer before they vote on a federal shield law.

[snip]

Second, how can the arguments and behavior of journalists in a case such as this be reconciled with the profession's self-image as the public watchdog, bringing accountability to government? The public officials who leaked investigative information to Ms. Locy broke the law, ruined an innocent man, and violated the public trust. Shouldn't our watchdog bark or something?

The leakers should be fired, prosecuted, or both -- and reporters who care about government accountability should be racing each other to tell us who these miscreants are. The fact that they shut their mouths tight and run the other way suggests that the image of reporter-as-watchdog does not reflect the current place of journalism in society, whatever may have been true in the past.

Third, if the law prevents courts from ordering reporters to identify anonymous sources, what will prevent government officials from using the private information they keep on us for personal or political score-settling? What will prevent them from simply lying? What will prevent reporters from inventing anonymous sources who don't actually exist?

[snip]

Ideally journalists would ask these questions themselves. But it's not an ideal world. That's why they occasionally need to be held accountable, too.

- Attorney (for Steven Hatfill) Mark Grannis

http://s.wsj.net/article/SB120553984106238259.html