Now that 5 years of irreparable damage is done to our country and our planet, the media wakes up and begins to tell the truth about Bush. This is exacly why I depend more on bloggers than on paid journalists to tell me what’s really going on. I never once believed the WMD bullshit, for example. It amazed me that anyone couldn’t see through that garbage.
Behind the NYT paywall, Krugman drops more science about how the media is only just now reporting on weaknesses that Bush has had all along.
Read the speeches Howard Dean gave before the Iraq war, and compare them with Colin Powell’s pro-war presentation to the U.N. Knowing what we know now, it’s clear that one man was judicious and realistic, while the other was spinning crazy conspiracy theories. But somehow their labels got switched in the way they were presented to the public by the news media.
As I’ve said before: paging the 4th estate…break time is over, get back to work before you make yourselves irrelevant! Thanks to Ed Cone for reading the NYT paid content so the rest of us don’t have to. š
Related: Check out this chart showing mentions of New York Times columnists dropping off precipitiously after the Times started charging for online access to editorials.
I think this is less a blogs. v mainstream media issue, than an issue of major US newspapers participating in a culture of lapdog timidity towards those in power, and general skittish subservience to their corporate paymasters. Plenty of non-US papers (say the Guardian or the Globe and Mail) presented a different picture. And there were plenty of screamingly right-wing blogs parroting the administration’s position on the war.
I totally agree. It’s not ABOUT blogs, but the American mainstream media not doing it’s job is what makes me turn to blogs for credible information.
It also emphasizes the point that objectivity is dying. I prefer ethics to the lie of objectivity anyway.
I don’t trust a paper that is promoting a viewpoint that I don’t share, so I seek out outlets that DO share my perspective. That may lead to more ideological echo chambers, but I’m not going to accept my news fronm unethical sources like Republicans or the papers they own, or the media that kisses their ass.