You're an adjective! And a damn useful one.

More to your point, the mainstream "journalists" you criticize here aren't as disciplined and don't police themselves as effectively as doctors, lawyers and other professionals with monopolies in their respective fields. That is one of the reasons journalists are losing that monopoly to bloggers.

So it killing puppies and setting fire to buildings. Was that his point? I have to sort of agree that the press is more or less a gaggle of sociopaths who, if they can't report it, because that's too hard and they're lazy, just make it up. We, the rest of us simply recognize that for what it is: advertising.

Journalists never criticize their own professional failures until after it's too late to have an impact. Following the election of McCain/Palin expect a brief bout of self-flagellation where they will briefly mention the most conspicuous examples of professional malfeasance, resolve to do better, and then trundle off to McCain's ranch for BBQ and beers at the after party.

I think Matt and his ilk need to clearly acknowledge that and should be a "black label" on all news sources (like those for cigarettes and some prescription drugs).

[ Please Note: The news presented here has been sponsored & delivered by corporations. All journalists responsible for gathering and presenting the news through this source receive their income from their sponsors. ]

in posting in your last column about MSNBC and Olberman and Matthews supposed demotion.

Long before I began watching Countdown, I was watching Hardball.

And it still, to this day, after watching what Chris Matthews did to Al Gore, after how he described George W as having a "sunny nobility" amazes me than anyone can begin to see this pundit as "liberal." Never mind his personal hatred for Hillary. Never mind the sneering of him and Shuster and Olberman unable to contain their glee over sexist trashing of Senator Clinton. He openly trashed Al Gore; openly bragged on W, on Mc Cain and people still insist he is "liberal" because he was "against the war." WOW.....

Got to go to work (for my self interest...I teach.....mostly poor children and spend time being told I am lousy by the pundit class because "public education" is a failure.......but that's another post.

There's a scene in one of the Star Wars where Han Solo is trying to beguile Princess Leaha and she gets really irritated. At which point, Solo says: "See, I must have gotten pretty close to the point there to get her all riled up like that."

Once you posit that journalists have no obligation to do anything other than advance their self-interest, then all media criticism becomes incoherent.

More importantly, once you posit that journalists have no obligation to do anything other than advance their self-interest then the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press becomes incoherent. That First Amendment guarantee is premised on a press that performs certain duties beyond self-indulgently making a buck. That guarantee is placed so prominently in our Constitution because an adversarial press is necessary to the proper functioning of our polity. A press that gives up its adversarial role renounces the basis for its First Amendment protections and, in the end, facilitates and justifies the elimination of those protections.

Sometimes self-interest works to the benefit of the community, the classic example being the old saw that what is good for General Motors is good for America.

Licensed health-care professionals talk endlessly about performing tasks (usually gratuitously pointless form-filling) so as "to cover my ass/protect my license" and while I often point out that the best way to ensure ass coverage is to ensure that the patient does not have an adverse outcome in the first place, clearly there is an overlap where gratuitous test and paperwork may also serve to protect the best interests of the patient--which

Journalists are not licensed (as far as I know) and it is not always clear who they are serving. Is the reader, the public citizen the person served, or is it the employer, or is it indeed just the journalist him/herself?

If we view success in journalism in terms of those journalists and communicators who have the greatest exposure, there certainly seems to be a correlation between being a well-known name and making a lot of money--and it is noticeable that those who command multimillion dollar salaries in TV News are hardly on the cutting edge.

Furthermore, after a few years of making millions of dollars a year, it is hard to imagine that rich journalist's experience of easy living leads them to sympathize more with the problems of the poor than of the rich, because people always extrapolate from their recent personal experience.

Oh where did you find Mrs. Doubtfire? Good nannies are SO hard to find these days. Did I tell you about...

Rather than:

Sorry folks, we are going to have to cut this broadcast short because my babysitter has a date with her b/f and is having hysterics, so I will have to go...

Here's a juicy one for you - a new MSNBC headline - what is this, 1935 in Germany or something - get ready:

Fears grow of terrorist with ‘an American face' - updated 3:09 a.m. PT, Tues., Sept. 9, 2008

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26564997/

Yes - a terrorist with an American face. Would that be a white face? A black face? An Asian face? An Arab face? A Persian face? An Irish face? A Swedish face? A Polynesian face?

What kind of face, exactly, is an American face? Are they talking about the second-most effective terrorist in U.S. history, Timothy McVeigh? If you look at the representative photo stuck up by MSNBC, it turns out that a white face is an American face.

Suddenly it occurs to me... Obama doesn't have an American face!

What job does the author of this article have? Who is Robert Windrem, Senior investigative producer, NBC News?

Why isn't he interested in investigating Sarah Palin's ties to Alberta tar sands producers and also to Warren Buffet's MidAmerican Energy Co - the original pipeline booster back in the Murkowski days, who then got behind Palin, the reformer...

Oh, wait - it's almost the anniversary of 9/11 - I almost forgot.

Count on the press to whip up massive terrorism fear to get the old 9/11 juices flowing right before the big anniversary... and remember - the terrorists are now training people with "American faces" - could be anyone. I have even heard rumors that they've been in contact with some of Timothy McVeigh's disaffected old friends - better bomb Idaho while you still can.

Every time you think the U.S. press has hit the bottom of the barrel, they pull some new trick out of their ass. Unbelievable. Astonishing. They must be taking some very strange drugs - Prozac? Is this a Prozac Effect?

I think it is a General Electric effect, personally. They are very excited about having the opportunity to sell nuclear reactors to Iraq, and Bush is going to the mat for them. Fire Olbermann and boost Bush - I bet that was the memo.

When large corporations align themselves with radical left-wing or right-wing political interests, you get either fascism or communism, which in practice are almost identical to one another - and often outwardly friendly with one another (recall the Hitler-Stalin non-agression pact?)