Why? Why did it take the MSM so LONG?!?! [View All]

[TheGunslinger]

Seeing the articles from the DU homepage and seeing the massive coverage of the Plame leak case by the LA Times and other examples of the MSM showing some teeth and biting into the facade of this administration is certainly an encouraging sign.

But, damnit! Why did it take them SO LONG?!

We know the MSM is largely controlled by conservative interests but have the reporters been flayed so often by managing editors that they've become reluctant to be the voice of the people? Libby contacting Russert re: something Libby didn't like at NBC and Russert going to the President of NBC with it? Keith Olbermann being questioned, nay, scolded for having liberal guests on two nights in a row? The NY Times letting Judith Miller chant out the SIS-BOOM-BAHs of this administration's war cheers via her columns?

This same group of journalists and other media had no problem exposing every perceivable flaw of the last President but it's beyond pulling teeth getting something like Seymour Hersh's The Stovepipe and Selective Intelligence or Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski's The New Pentagon Papers into the mass media for acceptance by all of America.

It's a shame, a crying shame, that people like Hersh and Lt. Col. Kwiatkowski are treated as hucksters and radicals. Hersh's long career is paved in the truth that governments didn't want to hear. Lt. Col. Kwiatkowski worked under the direction of a key PNACer in the OSP and saw first-hand the distortion of evidence to take us to war.

And it goes beyond just the Iraq invasion. The Terri Schiavo case. The endless stream of Missing-Pretty-White-Girl stories. The narcissistic and paranoid nature of this administration filled with yes-men, afraid to hear even the slightest bit of criticism leveled toward them (see what happened to Wilson? See what happens on the House floor when a Republican doesn't vote like DeLay wants?)

Our country is at a tipping point, politically and economically. Our government cannot continue when both major parties are more interested in making themselves look good in order to keep fund raising at the maximum level instead of looking out for the good of the country via sound domestic and foreign policy. The two-party system is failing the American public.

Our economy is the most fragile I've seen in my entire life of nearly 40 years. There are mixed messages all over the economic indicators and I fear a major stock market collapse is nigh.

And the MSM has been complicit in all of this. The removal of anti-conglomerate regulations is turning our media into, well, a growth of Aspens. They seem to all turn together (well, FOX is obviously on a separate root system. Hell, they're on another planet! ;) ). But, what will it take to finally convince the conservative-owned media that they truly need to remain independent from the political party currently in power.

Is the answer renewed regulation? Forced, shared ownership of the media companies? I don't know. What I *do* know is that something must change and it must change quickly and for the better or else this country will continue its slide into apathy and ignorance. I love this country. I love it with every ounce of my being but it pains me to see it suffering, esp. under the weight of the peoples' indifference, corporations' greed and the media's lack of ethos.