most consider that while the government and the elite of most oil rich countries in the region are solidly in US pocket (Saddam slipped off in 1990, but never mind) The populace is fiercely opposed to the US policies and angry to the brink.

This is a crucial point. All this talk about "punishing Iran" or "appeasing" operates on the human tendency to personify things. Iran is not a body with a head that feels pain if you damage part of it. Iran is 68 million individuals each with their own self interest at heart and each with a separate story to tell. Failure to recognize this simple concept has resulted in tragedy of a vast scale and is undoubtedly going to do so again in the very near future.

The world would be better off without these kinds of leaders.

But they keep rising to the top. There's something about human nature which allows their tendencies to be amplified. The key to limiting the damage is to remind their followers that every time they rail on about their satanic enemies, they're actually simply describing what they see in the mirror.

You speak of the track record of the press in general as a reason why ABC news's assurances of the reliability of their sources should be questioned. But I would go further to assert that ABC itself is one of the worst offenders and is in fact the LEAST reliable of any of the major networks. For evidence, I'd cite this incident:

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/09/senate-democratic-leadership-threatens.html

While ABC news and ABC entertainment are two different entities within the Disney sphere of influence, I would suggest that the brazen disregard of facts shown by the entertainment division and the defiant nature of their response to the controversy suggests that as an entity ABC/Disney has pretty much blown it in the trust depertment.

Need I mention that the 700 Club still airs on ABC/Family?

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/abc-entertainment-president-personally.html

Feet to the Fire: The Media After 9/11, Top Journalists Speak Out (Hardcover)

http://www.amazon.com/Feet-Fire-Media-After-Journalists/dp/1591023432

But it's clear that the best pre-war reporting was done by Kight-Ritter and Walter Pincus for WaPo (usally on page 17). I would say (subject to revision) that ABC was pretty much in the middle of the pack.

I never watch the evening news. I believe I am still a well informed person. I rely on BBC World and CBC Newsworld. And Salon plus the blogospehere.

The people who gather here are not the ones who are going to go to the voting booth armed with nothing but vague notions and feelings. The nature of democracy is such that many decisions are shared equally between the informed and the clueless. When certain organizations rely on cluelessness as a major source of income, it is important to at least make sure that the most blatant irresponsiblity is pointed out and engaged. The stakes are too high to ignore.

But scepticism is different from full-scale distrust, an affirmative belief that these institutions are corrupt and unreliable

I think what marks some of the more pessemistic of your readers isn't the belief that these institutions are corrupt and unreliable. It's the belief that they are unimprovable. I've noted on several occasions that you get impatient with people who insist that the system is rigged and nothing we do here will help.

I, for one, am grateful that you not only call BS when you see it, but that you are taking the extra step of engaging with people and actively trying to make things better.

If the distrust of the media were due solely to the excess coverage of Monicagate, would that change the thesis that ABC's insistence that it be trusted "just 'cus" is misguided?

Um no....

So what then IS the point?

Compare to Gallup: "In general, how much trust and confidence do you have in

the mass media such as newspapers, T.V. and radio…"

--------Confident-------- ----Not confident---- No

NET Grt.deal Fair amt. NET Not much None opin.

9/15/04 44 9 35 55 39 16 1

9/10/03

http://abcnews.go.com/images/Business/mediapoll.pdf

If you follow the link, the bottom of page 3 includes the question:

Compare to Gallup: "In general, how much trust and confidence do you have in

the mass media such as newspapers, T.V. and radio…"

9/15/04 44 9 35 55 39 16 1

9/10/03 54 14 40 46 35 11 *

9/8/02 54 10 44 46 35 11 *

9/10/01 53 12 41 47 33 14 *

The highlighted numbers are the net "Confident" responses.

I don't remember what month Rathergate went down, but those numbers show a clear drop in confidence between before and after it became clear that there were no WMD's.

of whether the public SHOULD trust the media.

The point of the post is after all, that a particular ABC executive is saying that we should trust him for no other reason than his identity. This is, of course, silly. I'm reading a very fat book currently which consists of interviews with a wide number of journalists on the subject of post 9-11 reporting. Of course the only reason to discuss post 9-11 reporting at all is because it was so horrendously and tragically wrong. Even those who defend the journalism of time acknowlege that. They only differ on how much they are personally culpable for the result.

Read carefully it actually scans as true even if only one person's distrust has been hightened.

In any event, nit-picking over this point is distracting from the actual point of the post the truth of which has remained unchanged throughout the discussion.