When the same event results in sharp, incisive editorializing and analysis in extra-US newspapers — and blunted platitudes held together with library paste in our own bastions of the 4th Estate — I can only thank the Internet for at least a minimal chance to read about what the hell is going on in the world. Bush’s lies and Blair’s were skewered, daily, in newspapers running the gamut from the MIRROR to the FINANCIAL TIMES. My favorites being the GUARDIAN and the Glasgow SUNDAY HERALD. The runup to US invasion of Iraq was uniformly unquestioned or examined by mealymouthed Talking Heads, print or electronic, in a fashion unmatched since the days of Goebbels!

All of us can doubtless repeat any number of similar tales on a local or regional scale. There are rare tales of independence from corporate mass media. Their scarcity proves the rule.

Indeed, the most damaging, IMO, were all the “puff pieces” leading up to the war in Iraq. The articles were all “lop-sidedly promotional[ly]” in favor of the war and failed to take a critical eye to the Administration’s case. For example, since his speech before the U.N., Colin Powell’s evidence has fallen to pieces. You wouldn’t know that it was suspect from the breathless reporting at the time.

This is just one example of many, of the “lop-sidedly promotional” reporting done on its pages. I would merely add that the “promotion” is broader than “for a company” as the term normally implies.