http://journalism.nyu.edu/portfolio/books/book53.html

David Halberstam, The Powers That Be (Knopf, 1979)
Reissued in paperback by University of Illinois Press in 2000

Twenty-one years after the release of Pulitzer Prize-winner David Halberstam's best-selling backstage glimpse into a formidable American media industry, The Powers That Be was reissued in paperback, and the world it celebrates is gone. The book dances with the characters at CBS, Time, the LA Times, the New York Times, and the Washington Post - a hegemony of powerful players, still juiced-up on Watergate and driven by unsullied tenets of print journalism. Their dialogue - rife with the challenges of Vietnam War coverage, the Nixon scandal, and encroaching corporate pressures - paints a picture of a profession at its high-water mark, obsessed with balancing what its audience wants with what it needs.

No one is sadder than Halberstam to watch those waters recede. His introduction to the new 2000 edition is a bleak summary of what he considers to be the media's rapid descent into service and celebrity-centered journalism, ledes that bleed, and a new generation of editors and producers who bite their nails over ratings instead of accuracy.

If we are to believe him, and there is certainly enough new media criticism that corroborates his perspective (see Robert W. McChesney's Rich Media, Poor Democracy), Halberstam's chronicle of the rise of the American media has become the wistful memoirs of a faded endeavor.

But the sheer devotion and fervor of the characters who guided journalism to its climax remains inspiring. With rich, concise strokes, Halberstam flits between what he has deemed to be television and print's most prestigious institutions, letting news figures and breaking stories point the way through the behind-the-scenes decisions that turned the media into such a viable force after Watergate. He fills the stage with an entire cast of news world players who lend this work a dimensionality and voice that has allowed it to endure.

- - website of NYU's Dept. of Journalism

In memoriam, David Halberstam 1934-2007.

A reporter's reporter.

http://dailyhowler.com/dh101603.shtml

. . . In an age of dangerous affluence, our press corps is overfed, overpaid, over-praised, and they print tonic to stir empty hearts—to fill the hollowed-out soul of their cohort. It’s clear that they have no plan to stop. When will Americans make them? . . . In fairness, Marie Antoinette had flunkies like this laying around her court too.
- - Somerby, 10-16-03

http://dailyhowler.com/dh042307.shtml

. . . Just a guess: It has been years since Dowd made a sincere statement in a Times column; for her, as for so many in her sad cohort, our politics really is “fun,” “entertainment” and “sport,” as Margaret Carlson told Imus . . . Below, we hash a few aspects of Dowd’s newest column. But readers, let’s get one thing straight. If you think your country’s discourse matters, it’s time for this crackpot to go.

ANTOINETTE’S LATEST PRONOUNCEMENT: How foolish is the latest pronouncement from our press corps’ number-one Antoinette? In Saturday’s column, Dowd pretends to be deeply disturbed by the price of John Edwards’ haircuts. (And make-up.) But uh-oh! She has her facts wrong, as she constantly does . . .
- - Somerby, 4-23-07

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eat-the-press/wwwdowd.jpg

Well, maybe it's like Casy says. A Queen bee ain't got a soul of her own, just a little piece of a big buzz - the one big buzz that torments ever'body. Then...then, it don't matter. She'll be all around in the dark. She'll be ever'-where - wherever you can look. Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, She'll be there, snickerin'. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, She'll be there, chortlin' . . . An' when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise, and livin' in the houses they build - She'll be there, too, gettin' ready to send out the swarm to sting 'em.

Or as Somerby says, when you're reading Dowd, you're riding with Coulter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaff_(radar_countermeasure)

The idea of using chaff was independently developed in the UK, Germany, and the United States. As far back as 1937, R. V. Jones had suggested that a piece of metal foil falling through the air might create radar echoes. In early 1942, a TRE researcher named Joan Curran had investigated the idea and come up with a scheme for dumping packets of aluminum strips from aircraft to generate a cloud of false echoes. The British referred to the idea as Window. Meanwhile in Germany, similar research had led to the development of Düppel. In the US, Fred Whipple developed a similar system for the USAAF. The systems were all essentially identical in concept, small aluminum strips cut to one-half of the target radar's wavelength. When dropped, the strips would give a strong echo, appearing as a bomber on radar screens. Opposing defenses would find it almost impossible to pick out the "real" bombers from the false echos.

Back in the days of JFK, most of the White House staff didn't know anything about JFK's personal life. A few reporters knew, but they kept mum. Nowadays, reporters don't keep mum (except about important foreign policy stuff), but reporters can be confused and bewildered into silence via chaff.

On a totally unrelated note, there are rumors of the first lady secretly taking up residence at several different places around town.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/10/15/qa_bill_moyers_bill_moyers/?page=2

Boston Globe, October 15, 2006

"I was press secretary in the Johnson administration when we circled the wagons and mocked reporting from Vietnam from the likes of David Halberstam — with terrible consequences for Vietnam and America.

We let ideology blind us to the facts on the ground. That’s the driving force in my work, to never let it happen again."
- - Bill Moyers