The idea of a free market that functions smoothly on its own is only practical in theory as is communism. The problem is that the corporations that are the engines of the market are run by people who don't necessarily make rational decisions. Case in point, a current argument as to why women don't make as much as men in the workplace is that women aren't as aggressive as men in demanding higher salaries. If that were true and a free market really worked, every corporation would be hiring equally qualified women as executives since they cost less.

Another problem with the free market idea is that time and time again, business has shown its desire to not compete rather than compete and win. Our current market shows that a major business in any industry would rather remove their competitors rather than compete with them. That is what mergers are all about.

And lets not forget the impact the stock market has on the free market. You have a company, its not doing to well at the moment, but you need to please your investors, what are you going to do? Compete harder or fire 10% of your staff to make your P&L statements look more attractive to wall street? The stock market inherently cripples the free market because now companies have two different sets of customers and they can't please both.

Time and time again companies have shown their willingness to harm or kill their customers. Now how is that 'free market'? With out severe governmental oversight to protect individual consumers from the power of multi-national billion or trillion dollar behemoths, we don't stand a chance.

In its ultimate expression of the free market there would be one company and we'd all be slaves, and I bet you every major ceo jerks off thinking about that.

I do agree the market can help with the environment, I firmly believe it would only be when they are forced to. If left to their own devices by the time the market realized something needed to be done, it'd be too late.

ANYTHING can be funny. Funny is subjective. Anyone claiming that something is universally unfunny is dangerously overstepping the boundaries of their own presumed self-importance.

An example of the subjectivity of 'funny' would be that the rapist may be laughing during a rape, the victim hardly ever does.

"...Kerry stopped talking to journalists for the remainder of the campaign, except during rare press conferences or interviews. And, for the life of me, I do not see how any voter benefits from presidential candidates becoming completely cloistered."

The voter benefits if the reporter reports what exactly is happening. The voters benefit if they learn that candidates only speak to reporters when they control the message, perhaps indicating that they are manipulative, scheming, people, instead of the honest, down home, folksy persona they try to portray.

Perhaps if reporters cared more about reporting than access, we'd have better political reporting.

Perhaps if reporters called the candidates bluff and walked away, we'd have better political reporting.

Perhaps all this not being obvious is what is wrong with political reporting today.

Although my natural response to this is outrage for all the reasons most here are upset by this, but I say:

You know what? Fuck big media, fuck corp run media. I say we stop trying to 'save' it and let it die.

When our founding fathers guaranteed freedom of the press, what they had in mind were individuals and small groups of people covering the news because they cared. They most certainly did NOT envision the corporate monstrosities that dominate the 'press' today with profit their number one goal. Misinformation, misdirection, entertainment, banality, bathos, pathos, knee-jerk responses, cowardice, and worst of all, from 2000 on, basically serving as an unpaid public relations wing of the government. And I'm not just talking about Fox News either.

Let it all go, the faster we let it sink to its lowest level, the faster people will turn to the kind of press out founders had in mind. The internet.

We should just smile and let them do whatever they want and walk away.

71% of the American public still regularly get their news from local TV, 54% from a local daily paper, 46% from network evening newscasts

Exactly my point. These people are NOT being served. They think they are informed but they are merely being entertained (if they are lucky) more likely they are just being marketed to.

The sooner big media dies, the sooner these people can start to receive some decent information.

"If we follow his advice—do nothing and let it collapse on its own—then we'll certaintly get more of the same from the Internet..."

True, no doubt big media will flood the internet with it's mind-garbage, however there is a big difference. The masses don't have access to the networks. They don't have access to nationally or globally distributed newspapers or magazines. On the though, internet, all it takes is a connection and some sort of web host and the people can speak. HUGE difference.

Besides, my advice is not to do nothing. I say support big media's attempt to destroy itself. The faster the better. The faster that the average citizen stops getting corporate lobbying or mindless banter delivered by models and have it called 'news' the better.