Freedom of the Press, or Freedom FROM the Press

I decided to give myself plenty of reading time this morning--and I noticed something I'll touch on in a second.

Early on, I came across this post from Timshel. He links to Atrios commenting on the elite media. Steve Gilliard has his own, slightly different version. Heathers vs. Kool Kids Klub--take your pick.

I find myself hitting blogs before going to news sources. The links above go a long way in explaining why. Sure, I cite news outlets in my own posts. But the US media no longer can be trusted. And, they more or less admit it. The Times, after some self-serving praise, allowed that it showed a lack of "rigor" in endorsing the Bush run to war. Lack of rigor. I think Alexander Cockburn said it a lot better: they swallowed hook, line, sinker, rod, and reel, the Administration's point of view. In other words, they made a mockery of the idea of an independent press.

Michael Massing, in this New York Review of Books article, points out that it wasn't just the "newspaper of record" that dropped the ball, kicked it around a few times until it fell through a storm drain, and then got stuck in a sewer pipe. Virtually the ENTIRE national press corps has shamed their profession.

Fortunately, there's the overseas press for actual news. The US press, IN SPITE of having a tremendous degree of political protection (i.e., the First Amendment), is good for little more than mouthing the official line. Calling it the the Pravda of whatever river they're close to (Hudson or Potomac) is an insult to Pravda, which at least was up front about being an organ of propaganda.

At the same time, though, if you look around, you can find items worth noting. While browsing, I came across this list of things from The Left Coaster. For an open thread, there's plenty of stuff--everything from Halliburton to the Plame investigation and more (about the only thing missing is a link to the Enron tapes. So, just for the record, here's one). But this sort of proves my point. It's a blog that makes the essential connection--all the stories cited are examples of scandalous actions by the Bush administration.

Speaking of The Left Coaster, check this out if you've got time. Short version: Afghanistan is becoming a "failed state." And, not coincidently, Juan Cole has a post this morning noting that--imagine--Iraq is also becoming a failed state. A functional press would make the connection. But the US press is no longer functional.

That doesn't mean the press is no longer powerful. Tim Russert can still make or break a politician. But one good thing about the rise of blogs is that there's the possibility of stealing a little bit of their thunder, as it were. I've gone from scanning a newspaper first thing in the morning to scanning the blogs. THEN I look at the various Pravdas in print (or online, in the case of the Times and the Post--it's also cheaper, and, for those who dislike having to register, LSU Blog links to a fantastic site, Bugmenot, which has anonymous logins for all sorts of stuff). Freedom of speech is not something to be held in trust by a group of journalists--especially a sorry assed group like the ones in our national media. Punditry is nothing more that opinion, pure and simple, and I see nothing in the views and opinions of the national press that is any better thought out or analyzed than what I read on the internet every day. In fact, blogs usually have BETTER analysis than the pundits, because there's no incentive to suck up to anyone. And, as a former DAILY reader of the printed copy of the Times and whatever the local paper was, I hope that I'm part of a trend that reduces their power--or at least their revenue.

That's something I could be proud of.