Our Broken Media, Cont'd.

During the run-up to the Iraq War, the vast majority of the mainstream media was carrying water for the  Bush Assministration, printing jingoistic editorials and "news" stories based on spoon fed "intelligence" provided to them by the Bushies.  With the exception of a few journalists (e.g., the McClatchy Newspapers' Jonathan Landay), there was a lot of flag waving and no skepticism.

Sadly for the American people, the same mainstream media that provided a convenient megaphone for the neocons after 9-11 are reluctant to explain and apologize for their journalistic malpractice.  Not surprisingly the formerly great Washington Post Kaplan Daily's neocon management is a glaring example.  They even went so far as to kill an op-ed piece by Greg Mitchell that was critical of the news media for being Bush Assministration stenographers instead of journalists.  The Kaplan Daily's transparently lame excuse was that Mitchell's article didn't provide "broader analytical points or insights" into the media's culpability.  Here's the estimable Charles Pierce's reaction in Esquire.com:

"'Broader analytical points or insights'? These are the people who publish Thiessen on torture, George Effing Will's experiments with climate-change denialism, and Michael Gerson on anything. These are people who will publish any prominent conservative who can find a crayon. Here's my broader analytical point -- everyone associated with The Washington Post editorial page -- and a lot of the executives on the news side, especially the ones that buried Walter Pincus's great work back on A13 -- are complicit in hundreds of thousands of deaths, and they should all have their heads shaved, the phrase "I fcked up the world" tattooed on their scalps, and sent off to work in the wards at Walter Reed until they collapse from exhaustion."

Exactly. Unfortunately, they're too busy complaining about not being invited to the President's private golfing outings or falsely accusing the President's staff of "intimidation" even after e-mails show that to be a lie. We deserve better.

(photo: The Kaplan Daily's editorial board won't be made a monkey of)