Our "Mainstream Press" - Nothing more than Pod People

Over at Old Hickory, Bruce connects the psuedo-journalism of UFO-ology to today's "mainstream reporting" and finds that "our press reports on matters of major public concern with UFO-nut-level journalism. That's no small part of the story of the last eight years."

Earlier this week, Digby penned a superb missive excoriating the media's "passion for worthless speculation and scandalmongering" and noting that it is we, the media's audience that gives "them their power by not holding them to a common standard." Digby's followup yesterday on the mainstreaming of Stuart Taylor's "crusade" against holding this unitary executive, torturing administration accountable for its crimes against the American people further outlines how today's MSM Villagers - especially those inside the D.C. Beltway - will do anything to protect themselves and their powerful position. (Personally, I was always partial to the term "Heathers.")

So it was with great interest I read today's Washington Post Style-section puff piece about the D.C.-area network television Green Rooms - and those that habituate such places. The article is filled with extuisite observations:

* Here in the Washington greenrooms of networks like CNN and Fox, ABC and NBC, unfiltered proximity affords priceless opportunities to exchange business cards, hatch unlikely partnerships, collect some intel, spark romances.

* These across-the-aisle, greenroom friendships can become lucrative propositions.

* By 8:30 a.m. on a recent Sunday, the crew at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant, the Source, has laid out smoked salmon and capers, bagels, bacon, hash browns and quiches in the greenroom at ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos."

* the columnist George F. Will is sitting in his private version of a backstage greenroom -- you can't miss it, the sign at the door reads "GFW." He gets a special room because he's a regular on the show and because, well, he's George Will.

Wait a minute. You mean those rhetorical combatants are friends, business associates and even lovers? How is that possible?? And why are the viewers never told about this? The Post's editors must have gotten lazy or forgetful to allow this much "truth" to escape from behind the scenes.

America's media has failed the American people. Of course, some will argue that "the Media" was just giving the People exactly what they wanted - worthless speculation and scandalmongering." To me, that is no different than than saying the Big 3 only sold giant SUVs because that is all the consumer wanted? There is truth to this point - people did (and maybe still do) want giant SUVs and crappy media - yet, how much of that desire exists outside the works of marketers and purveyors of the "conventional wisdom"?? And how much desire is there when the broader "truth" is known?

Today, due to the miracle of "teh intertubes," we are fortunate to find, and easily find, some of the broader truths out there. Or at least broader points of view beyond what the clueless, access-driven puditocracy would have us observe. So thank you, Digby, Bruce, Bob, Drifty, John and Steve, Josh and all the others who are doing what the MSM could be doing - and should be doing.

(P.S. - I would be remiss if I did not point out that there are a couple "MSM" outlets out there that still retains journalistic integrity, solid reporting and a focus on public enlightenment and good:
* McClatchy
* Bill Moyers and PBS Frontline
* Harpers (and especially, Scott Horton and Ken Silverstein)
OK - you're right, none of these are mainstream media! What a sad sommentary about journalism in America today. I guess at least there is Keith.)