I had difficulties getting video from C-SPAN (choppy to the point of not being coherent). The best live-video I could get was from the Fox News website, linked from their main page (http://www.foxnews.com/index.html)

Maybe their viewership is lower? Cheers.

Administration Pulls Back on Surveillance Agreement

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/washington/02intel.html

hume's ghost, i think you're dead-on.

one hopes that to defeat this neo-conservative/unitary executive/fascism-lite movement the united states won't be destroyed in the process. such authoritarian movements tend to sink the ship they're sailing on, don't they?

there's no guarantee the american experiment will last forever, as much as one hopes it will. when people start to realize that, i think there will be a significant, and so far lacking, degree of commitment to resist among the non-authoritarian/non-extremist left AND right. because, as hume's ghost said, they will not go without a fight.

hope it happens soon. hope it happens soon.

While I think GG's analysis of the media, the example in this case being the Politico, is spot on, it only works insofar as you accept that the Politico is in fact an example of polical journalism (consider the definition of journalist principles espoused by PEJ: http://www.journalism.org/resources/principles). And this is an age old American tradition, selling yourself as one thing when you are quite another.

So, the hair story is very much what one would expect from the Politico--it's an online politics/personality tabloid appealing to the right wing. Nothing more, nothing less.

I see the established big media outlets are trending in that direction too, and more quickly now than before (we can beat that dead horse for a long time, as fun as it is to watch GG do it). The functions of investigation, questionning and analysis has been in large part, though not entirely, relinquished by the corporately owned print press. Increasingly in its place are "stories of interest" that are tailored to appeal to a diminishing consumer base (at least in terms of market share, see http://www.naa.org/CirculationPages/Circulation-Statistics-and-Trends/Readership-Statistics.aspx) . It's the economics of it. Consider the role that "ratings" now plays in selecting what will be printed in this piece by the American Journalism Review: http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4121.

I think that the derisive tone that some M$M reporters take towards blogging is specifically because of this. As blogging and other forms of distributed reporting continue to compete with M$M for market, the latter will naturally try to protect its revenue base by appealing to a definable and consistent market. As a rear-guard action, they will denigrate their competition. This isn't the business of journalism, it's the marketing of media.

If the objective is to get higher quality journalism to the masses, it will come from new delivery channels (that integrate the internet) which will compete with older channels that are becoming outdated and increasingly irrelevant (by their own choice to become purely profit oriented) and the predictable carpetbaggers who smell a new territory to exploit.

This blog fucking rocks.

is that other major issues are under-reported or neglected altogether. Therein lies a danger, since a free citizenry will rely on the press to lift up any rocks under which threats breed and fester.

Take for example the evangelizing of not just the Whitehouse, the Department of Justice and several institutions of science, but also the military itself (e.g. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/03/940/ --independently published btw). These are major relevant issues that go largely unreported (I think because it's not good marketing). I get that religion is a very touchy topic, especially in America, but I also get that the institution counted on to do that, i.e. the "free press", no longer can by virtue of its fiduciary responsibilities.

Though I'm sure GG is not lacking in topics for future blogs, I would love to see what he would write on this issue.

In reading GG's piece today, it struck me that what his evidence points to is the fundamentally authoritarian nature of the neoconservative movement. After WWII, there was a real interest in trying to understand what made the "bad guys" bad guys. The work of Theodor Adorno and others developed the idea of the authoritarian personality, characterized by:

Conventionalism -- uncritical acceptance of social conventions and the rules of authority figures; adherence to the traditional and accepted

Authoritarian Submission -- unqualified submission to authorities and authority figures

Authoritarian Aggression -- hostility toward individuals or groups disliked by authorities, especially those who threaten or violate traditional values

Intellectual hollowness -- rejection of the subtle, subjective, imaginative and aesthetic; little or no introspection

Superstition and Stereotypy -- ready acceptance of pseudoscience as truth, cliché, categorization; ethnic and religious prejudice; fatalistic determinism

Power and Toughness -- identification with those in power; excessive emphasis on socially advocated ego qualities; rejection of gentleness; contempt for the weak, unpopular, and powerless

Destructiveness and Cynicism -- general hostility, lust for violence, extreme pessimism, view of the world as a dangerous place

Projectivity -- belief in the overwhelming power of evil in the world, even in natural phenomena, and to project unconscious emotional impulses outward

Sex -- undue concern with the methods of reproduction and sexual activities of one's self and others

Bear in mind, this research is from the 50's and was heavily influenced by the fascist movements that arose in Europe (an in the case of Franco's Spain, still existed). That being said, does this list remind you of any more recent social movements? John Dean certainly thought so in his book Conservatives Without Conscience.

For more information, see: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/