The View From 103

So our sophisticated citizenry feel that their newspapers are not performing up to snuff. And The Phantom is now on record stating that the New York Times - one of the finest newspapers on the planet - is "not essential reading anymore". What! Do you work for Rupert Murdoch?

The job of the press is to inform the public. Among most developed nations North Americans remain frightfully uninformed...and misinformed. This is more astonishing when one considers that we have one of the finest news traditions on the planet, protected by law, enabled by the best communications and other technologies.

One of the observations to come out of the Pew study is that a large number of polled citizens feel that our press is unpatriotic. Gee I hope so. If we get any more patriotic we will see the Fox newscasters dressed in jackboots and brown shirts, goose-stepping about the newsroom. It's not the press' job to run the flag up a pole. Their job is to serve us the facts. And when they do - and by god they still do a pretty good job of it - the favored elites in this country go nuts over the exposure. After all, the truth hurts.

Social injustice, political corruption, white collar crime, poverty, poor education, the health care debacle, the bogus Iraq War, the extended New Year's Eve party of the rich, all are only possible as long as the perpetrators and beneficiaries enjoy annonymity.

Let's face it. People are still getting screwed big time in this country and the biggest fools are the middle class ''moderates" a generation or two removed from crowded tenements, sweatshops, union busters, and such fond social sentiments as "no Irish need apply" who now identify with the interests of the tiny minority who control the lion's share of wealth. Oh but let's not forget your allies in the religious right. Thee and thine evangelical pals have foist thy moral candidate Bush upon us for another term.

Oh sure! The news media is biased. Why just look at all the marvelous social reforms that the left-leaning press have rallied the citizens to fight for and win. The truth is that happy, successful, moderate people don't want to be mobilized around the big issues. They seek their daily fix of sensationalized, local non-news and sports. The charge of bias is claimed by those who have grown apathetic to the plight of the unfortunates and by the elites who actually stand to loose something should the public awake. They don't want the issues laid out in the true complexity that exposes the selfishness and short sightedness of conservative politics.

Nero fiddles while Rome burns. Antoinette returns as Ann Coulter: "Let them eat cake and get their news from the O'Reilly Factor." The New York Times is suitable only for wrapping fish after all.

No, don't work for Rupert Murdoch, but he is a welcome addition to to American journalism.

Despite the abuse he takes from the Park Slopies, his journalists actually check their facts, unlike Dapper Dan Rather and Jayson Blair.

Remember when CNN news head Eason Jordan said that US military targeted journalists in Iraq. He never backed it up, and he resigned in disgrace. Where's the equivalent scandal at Fox?

You can criticize Fox for spending too much time on human interest tragedy stories, but then you can make the same criticism of CNN and most of the rest who live for " tragedy tv "

Fox has been an immense hit since inception because they play it straight. If you're very biased to the left, you think think that they're crazy to the right. But the US viewing public would tend to disagree.

Bet you think Noam Chomsky is a really deep thinker, eh? Ha ha ha.

The Phanto has no beef with the religious right. The agnostic right might be more like it.

I'm not sure that the average American is much less informed that the average Frenchman for example. Ever read the French press? There is almost no diversity of view there. It is all groupthink--shades of left, that is all.

It is the new technology of the internet that will slowly dismantle the MSM ( mainstream media ) . Bad news for the NY Times, CNN and Le Monde. Very good news for democracy.