It looks like the media have, once again, been played for patsies. Rove is history (and not in a good way), the silliness of predicting future events is back in full play. So it’s a good time to ask, once again, just what it is they are really up to. The answer, I’m afraid, is “no good.”

Journalists have been operating under the illusion and defense that they are above the law the rest of us live under. That they need “Journalistic Privilege” to uncover the truth and spread it throughout the land. That they are the guardians of truth and all that stands between democracy and fascism. I might be somewhat sympathetic to their position if I could recall that even on balance during the past decade they exposed more government corruption and criminality than they hid. Or if substantive exposes of national importance were occasionally done and could only have been accomplished with the existence of “Privilege.”

The MSM doesn’t do that. They have abused the “Privilege.” They are conduits for propaganda which they dish out to the public without alteration, analysis, research or investigation. Those who call themselves “journalists” were incapable of determining or too timid to report the truth about the WH “aluminum tubes” claim. If they are so incompetent that they couldn’t uncover the truth about the aluminum tubes, then this country will not suffer if the MSM disappears. If they were simply too timid, that is even worse. [...]

In today’s Oklahoman, in an AP story about President Bush’s new ethics guidelines for White House employees, the name of the Deputy Chief of Staff, which hasn’t exactly been scarce in the news lately, is misspelled. It’s only eight letters long in its entirety; how hard can it be to get it right?

In the online AP version, oddly, only the last name “Rove” is used in its first use in the story, which is bad form for AP. So, evidently papers using the story needed to fill in the first name. I checked at another paper that ran it, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (selected at random), and they have it spelled correctly.

So whatever editor “corrected” the copy for the Oklahoman, performed the ultimate editorial faux pas: making an even worse error than the one they were trying to fix. I’m sure that person will be moving right on up the Gaylord express career ladder!

Summary of Findings: Public More Critical of Press, But Goodwill Persists

Public attitudes toward the press, which have been on a downward track for years, have become more negative in several key areas. Growing numbers of people question the news media’s patriotism and fairness. Perceptions of political bias also have risen over the past two years.

An open letter to The New York Times … from Media Matters for America