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...which is that the corporations that run the networks have agendas that REQUIRE the distortion of news and analysis.
there may have been a sainted time when the newsroom was insulated from such pressures. but that time is long gone. let's not forget jack welch in 2000 called nbc news to tell them to call the election for bush. these days, no call to the newsroom is necessary: the news personnel themselves consider any audiences that DON'T understand what the marching orders are to be saps.
that is, the personnel don't need any external pressures; they internalize the value system as their own.
and let's not forget how the bush administration showed them how to do it (if they didn't already know): with the illegal warrantless wiretaps, the bushites didn't deny it, they just kept on doing what they wanted, knowing that no one in a position to call them on it would do anything. and they were right: congress and the courts and the msm all gave them a pretty free pass.
nbc's behavior follows that m.o. -- not unlike union-busting corporations taking their cue from reagan's breaking of patco.
