Keeping a Democratic Web »
NY Times
One of the Internet's great strengths is that a single blogger or a small political group can create a Web page that is just as accessible to the world as Microsoft's home page. But this democratic Internet would be in danger if the companies that deliver Internet service changed the rules so that Web sites that pay them money would be easily accessible, while little-guy sites would be harder to access, and slower to navigate. Providers could also block access to sites they do not like.

Where's the shrill chorus of bootlickers denouncing him as a "Traitor!"
Gingrich Aids US Enemies, Criticizes Bush »
Glenn Greenwald

KTLA-5 and KABC-7:
not into truth
Fake TV News:
Widespread and Undisclosed »
NY TImes
• Get the facts behind this story - click here
• Still under the illusion of impartiality in the media? - click here and watch Chris Mathews sell his future to the criminal Tom DeLay ... absolutely stunning, caught on tape.

Lara Logan (who actually is in Iraq) on the right's blame the media campaign »
Highly recommended video that explores and exposes the flaws of the right's latest attack on the media for underreporting the good news in Iraq ... including a good summary on why the progress so far has been somewhat less than rosy.

1,300 dead in one week »
Washington Post
Fox News' considered assessment:

Embed Who Ran Afoul of Military in Iraq on His Experience, And War Coverage Today »
David Axe / Editor & Publisher
Embedding means serious limitations. Routinely, you only see what U.S. forces see: the insides of armored vehicles, the passing faces of frightened and angry Iraqi, and the muddy landscapes of walled bases.

Here's just one of many fascinating quotes from CNN's new hire »
Media Matters
I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could.

Facts? Who needs em! »
Editor & Publisher
One of the most disturbing media performances of its kind in recent years.
I have the feeling about 60% of what you say is crap »
Video - David Letterman has a nice chat with fatuous blowhard Bill O'Reilly

Corporate BS you wont hear about in the BS Corporate media
The Quiet Oil-for-Food Scandal »
AlterNet
We aren't going to hear much about the corporations that paid bribes in the Oil-for-Food scandal because Bush's family, friends and closest advisors are in it knee-deep, along with some Democrats.
Sidestepping Sanctions »
Mother Jones
... the Bush administration has used its power behind the scenes to make it easier for American companies to do business with the very countries it has targeted in the war on terrorism.
Mainstream Corporate Media
Couldn't Care Less About Your Vote »
Brad Friedman / Huffington Post
It's been a full two weeks now since the non-partisan Government Accountability Office came out with their 107-page report (pdf) confirming what so many of us have been trying to ring the bell about for so long: The Electronic Voting Machines which are proliferating counties and states across America are not secure, not accountable, not recountable, not transparent, not accurate and not adequately monitored or certified by anybody ... but there has not been a single wire-service (not AP, not UPI, not Reuters, not AFP etc.) nor a single mainstream American print newspaper (not NYTimes, not Washington Post, not any of them) to run even a paragraph on any of it. Not one.

What Judy forgot: Your right to know »
Robert Scheer / LA Times
The most intriguing revelation of Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's news conference last week was his assertion that he would have presented his indictment of "Scooter" Libby a year ago if not for the intransigence of reporters who refused to testify before the grand jury. He said that without that delay, "we would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005."   Had that been the case, John Kerry probably would be president of the United States today ... Instead of confronting Libby for trying to mislead reporters, Miller did nothing to expose his efforts to smear a former ambassador for raising such questions. At the very least, she should have written a story stating that a White House official was planting information to disparage a critic of its war policy."

The Fourth Estate And The Warfare State »
Norman Solomon / TomPaine.com
Judith Miller's piece in the New York Times offers more evidence of how the newspaper helped the White House portray deceptions about Iraq WMDs as facts.
Arianna Huffington: Unfit to Print - Both the New York Times' article and Judy Miller's personal account raise more questions than they answer.
David Corn: The Miller Mess Ain't Over ... I had hoped that executive editor Bill Keller would pull the paper's nuts out of the Miller fire. But the articles published by the Times – a self-serving first-person piece by Miller and a long triple-bylined article on the "Miller case" – made the deep hole in which the paper finds itself even deeper.

Journalistic Careerism:
Questions of Character »
Paul Krugman
... many people in the news media do claim, at least implicitly, to be experts at discerning character - and their judgments play a large, sometimes decisive role in our political life. The 2000 election would have ended in a chad-proof victory for Al Gore if many reporters hadn't taken a dislike to Mr. Gore, while portraying Mr. Bush as an honest, likable guy. The 2004 election was largely decided by the image of Mr. Bush as a strong, effective leader. So it's important to ask why those judgments are often so wrong.

What we really need is political journalism based less on perceptions of personalities and more on actual facts. Schadenfreude aside, we should not be happy that stories about Mr. Bush's boldness have given way to stories analyzing his facial tics. Think, instead, about how different the world would be today if, during the 2000 campaign, reporting had focused on the candidates' fiscal policies instead of their wardrobes.

The tragedy of a complicit media »
William Frey
... Day in and day out, as in both of these staged photo ops, members of the allegedly "liberal media establishment" in America dutifully dispense manipulated and misleading images to a believing public.

A press which will not cease to collaborate in routine daily Administration image manipulation and disingenuous photo ops is scarcely a press which will demand answers to grave discrepancies between rhetoric and actions.

Media compliment emperor's new clothes »
Media Matters for America
While President Bush's approval ratings plummet amid widespread dissatisfaction with his handling of Hurricane Katrina, many news outlets seem to be doing their best to try to rebuild his reputation -- making false claims that his poll numbers are improving; baselessly asserting that Bush has again "risen to the occasion"; giving him undeserved credit for Katrina recovery efforts; and downplaying his paralysis in the face of the disaster.

Rather: Ex-CBS anchor blasts "new journalism order" as "dumbed-down, tarted-up"

Cable news: Hucksters and harlots »
Ed Naha
Thank God Martin Luther King Jr. is no longer around giving his pesky "I have a dream" speeches. CNN would probably offer equal air-time to the Grand Dragon of the KKK for in-depth analysis.

A summer of double super secrecy »
CounterPunch
... It should come as no surprise that mainstream journalism didn't set the agenda with the Downing Street Memos. Looking back on the past year of state/press relations, how could corporate journalism do anything but? Oh, Bush Administration, you want to consistently lie to us humble journalists in order to start a war? Well we just might have to write an indignant all-too-late op-ed piece and then come back for some more abuse! Tightly control press conferences with pre-selected questions? Well, we appreciate any access, so I guess that's the best we can get right now. Manipulate our reporters with anonymous leaks and dirty tricks? Ok, we forgive you, but you watch out next time, ya big lug! Plant a fake journalist among our ranks? Naughty, naughty, but thanks for giving us a diversionary homoerotic titillation!

How many more mea culpas can we tolerate from these lapdogs?

Double Standards:
Speaking With the Enemy »
AlterNet
The Nightline interview with Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev is consistent with the Pentagon's 'accidental' bombings of three Al Jazeera bureaus -- and proof that U.S. government uses the media for foreign policy.

Bugged by Brits »
John Nichols / The Nation
Radio and television personalities in the United States were hysterical because after last week's bombings in London, too few Londoners were willing to be props for their right-wing ranting ... instead of parroting propaganda, the Brits preferred to engage in thoughtful discussions about what had happened, why the terrorists targeted London and what ought to be done to prevent future attacks. Few topics were off limits.

Fluff Crowds Out News Nation Needs »
Donald P. Russo / Morning Call
We find ourselves immersed in useless stories about Michael Jackson, Paula Abdul and Georgia's ''runaway bride,'' yet we get little or no information about war and peace. Three stories in particular raise questions about how much we know about compelling national security issues.

Lies of war: How the press enables the Bush administration »
Randolph T. Holhut

What does it take to get the American people to care about what is being done in their names in the so-called "war on terror?"

There is more outrage over shoddy sourcing in one story in Newsweek about Koran desecration at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay than about the numerous stories of well-documented abuse and torture of inmates in American prison camps.

A leaked memo from British intelligence comes out in the British press that all but confirms that the Bush administration had decided upon invading Iraq in 2002 and doctored the facts to bolster its case, and it is greeted with a collective yawn by the American press.

Linda Foley, the president of The Newspaper Guild suggests that non-embedded journalists are being killed in Iraq by what she called "the cavalier nature" of U.S. forces, and she instantly becomes a target of the right-wing screech monkeys who equate any deviation from the Bush administration line with treason.

British MP George Galloway can go before a bogus Senate committee investigating his alleged ties to the UN "Oil for Food" program, knock down every lie used to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and see his words disappear down the memory hole of the corporate press within hours of speaking them.

and a lot more ... nice summary

More Mainstream Media Mediocrity »
Frank Rich / New York Times

Yes, Mrs. Bush was funny, but the mere sight of her "interrupting" her husband in an obviously scripted routine prompted a ballroom full of reporters to leap to their feet and erupt in a roar of sycophancy like partisan hacks at a political convention. The same throng's morning-after rave reviews acknowledged that the entire exercise was at some level P.R. but nonetheless bought into the artifice. We were seeing the real Laura Bush, we kept being told.

"We create our own reality" is how a Bush official put it to Ron Suskind in an article in The Times Magazine during the presidential campaign. That they can get away with it shows the keenness of their cultural antennas. Infotainment has reached a new level of ubiquity in an era in which "reality" television and reality have become so blurred that it's hard to know if ABC News's special investigating "American Idol" last week was real journalism about a fake show or fake journalism about a real show or whether anyone knows the difference - or cares. This is business as usual in a culture in which the Michael Jackson trial is re-enacted daily on cable and the most powerful television news franchises, the morning triumvirate of "Today" and its competitors, now routinely present promotional segments about their respective networks' prime-time hits as if they were news.

neighborsforpeaceandjustice.org