Also bizarre is the posture of conservative indignation when an accurate quote from a public figure (which can be independently corroborated in publicly available sources) appears on the "wrong" kind of site.

One of the Fox blowhards seemed to think that this proved something negative about the person being quoted, as though quotes from Bush, Cheney and Rice don't also routinely appear in Arab language media.

I can't figure the logic -- other than to tie someone's name to an Arab language service to keep the hot buttons hot -- but Fox seems to like slipping this association in when covering the Dem presidential hopefuls. (Maybe the gang at Fox is worried that the wrong people will see the big board?)

...in that article from The WaPo reminds me of Matthews gushing about Bush. Howie is a jerk. Glenn isn't the first who has had valid criticisms of Kurtz. Sommersby has been doing this for years.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/h082900_1.shtml

Howie is one of Atrios' favorite wankers.

Don't worry -- everyone will suddenly remember their journalistic mandate to question government authority after 2008 when we swear a Democrat into office.

That's one of the points from The Elements of Journalism (which was, incidentally, endorsed by david Halberstam)

What the authors meant is that citizens should not be treated as something to be marketed to ... the corporatization of the media had changed the function of the news from serving the public interest by providing the people with the info they needed to be sovereign to turning them into consumers.

"The problem is that tying a journalist's income to his organization's fincancial performace, in effect, changes the journalist's allegiance. The company is saying that a good portion of your loyalty must be to the corporate parent and to share holders - ahead of your readers, listeners, or viewers."

Didn't see the email. That's not primarily my account anymore, which is why I asked you to put my name in the subject. Can you resend with my name?

Also, do you have any links handy to a comment where you explain in detail the Versailles press metaphor?

What's to explain? The thing explains itself.

But, now that you mention it, maybe I ought to do that.

...perhaps I should have said "short term gains," rather than just bottom line. Business managers used to have a longer view, one that incorporated natural business cycles.

It isn't just BigMedia... that short-term focus has ruined so much about all kinds of businesses and industries in the US. It's why acquisitions were so popular as a way of generating (leveraging?) income, why so many jobs now go overseas, and why so-called "journalists" and their keepers (i.e., paycheck writers) prefer expediency over principle.

Undoubtedly, Paul R will have something useful to add.

Of course, this common-sense observation drives a stake through the heart of your beloved libertarianism. But those are the breaks.

No it doesn't. As revolting as I find the current state of the "news" to be, there is no cure that would not be worse by seriously impairing freedom, as Mr. Dirks noted. People do not always use their liberty in ways I like, but letting them do so beats paternalism and totalitarianism every time.

Moreover, the reality is that this kewl Internet thingie -- unregulated and free -- is becoming, and will continue to become, the corrective. Unless, of course, The Regulators put a stop to it.

... to me about all this Olbermann vs. Hume vs. CNN vs. Fox is that I can't imagine any serious person relying on television for news, regardless of what channel one chooses.

On the Bill Moyers journal, it was very funny:

//start snip

BILL MOYERS: Critics point to September eight, 2002 and to your show in particular, as the classic case of how the press and the government became inseparable.

Someone in the administration plants a dramatic story in the NEW YORK TIMES And then the Vice President comes on your show and points to the NEW YORK TIMES. It's a circular, self-confirming leak.

TIM RUSSERT: I don't know how Judith Miller and Michael Gordon reported that story, who their sources were. It was a front-page story of the NEW YORK TIMES. When Secretary Rice and Vice President Cheney and others came up that Sunday morning on all the Sunday shows, they did exactly that.

TIM RUSSERT: What my concern was, is that there were concerns expressed by other government officials. And to this day, I wish my phone had rung, or I had access to them.

BILL MOYERS: Bob Simon didn't wait for the phone to ring.

//end snip

Russert apparently waits for people to contact him, is he such a big shot that the news will just flow to him? That he expects people to call him really sums it up. As though he doesn't do any real work.

And why would he? There is no incentive, doing actual research to give you evidence to be critical of the government will only get you criticized. If I had such a cushy job I probably wouldn't either.

@Paul R

Of course, this common-sense observation drives a stake through the heart of your beloved libertarianism. But those are the breaks.

No it doesn't. As revolting as I find the current state of the "news" to be, there is no cure that would not be worse by seriously impairing freedom, as Mr. Dirks noted. People do not always use their liberty in ways I like, but letting them do so beats paternalism and totalitarianism every time.

Just as abolishing the FDA is the way to protect public health. Because it seriously impairs the freedom of those whose lives it saves.

Insofar as news is a business, it does a wonderful job of making money for its owners (individual media may not be so profitable, as is the case with newspapers right now). Unfortunately, markets have no means of quantifying the ethical behavior of actors in it, nor would they pass along that information at the point of sale if they did. Market fundamentalism works when everyone is directly participating in the decision-making, but once you remove any significant portion of the population from the decision-making process and assign it to a single person or small group of people who are far removed from the consequences of their decisions, the flow of information that Hayek posits coming from prices in the market becomes so badly attenuated that it simply stops working. It is impossible to encapsulate all of the information that is required to make a sound decision and communicate to someone else; the more people you have between the decision-maker and the effects of the decision, the more you lose in translation. Thus, while Hayek may be entirely correct in his estimation of the role of prices, I think he makes a stronger case for Mutualism than he does for vulgar libertarianism.