I think the top story on Media Matters right now is quite illuminating.  I invite you all to please read it and think about how we can frame what could be a very key talking point for us.

The Edwards standard and John McCain

Well, this is my last diary at DKos, at least for a good while, and judging by the comments to my recent diaries that will be cause for rejoicing by many.  I can't promise I'll never be back, because this site has become, at least for me, the very center of the new liberal movement.

I posted two diaries over the weekend relating to Tim Russert, diaries I subsequently deleted at the request of various commenters and after the diaries elicited an avalanche of epithets, invective and personal abuse the likes of which I'd never seen at this site.  But here are the google cached versions:

http://72.14.205.104/...

http://72.14.205.104/...

I don’t believe people like me should be censored or pressured to self censor at any time when they are discussing what they/we believe is the truth about powerful figures. When you get to that level of prominence and impact, you give up the right to that sort of genteelness. It is much too important that we have honest discussions about what powerful people are doing and have done.

So long, Tim Russert. You are no longer conscious, gone from here and now to wherever and who knows. It will be left to others on the screens to report you’re passing, others parsing what it means and who you were, and how you'll be remembered - as if we weren't doing precisely that right now – and portentously forecasting what you’re absence means and further what it will mean to all of us.  

So?

I’ve been quick to point out the coddling of John McCain by the corporate media, and have (like many) been frustrated when his verbal diarrhea went virtually unnoticed during the Democratic primary process.

But over the past week or so (as a coincidence or not), it seems like there is a breaking through of the various "gaffes", other comments, crazy-ass policy positions and general confusion by McCain – and the coverage has started to show.

Scott McClellan's claims in his new book -- that the mainstream media were "complicit enablers" in the run-up to the Iraq war -- have  been met with denials from past and present TV news anchors such as Tom Brokaw, Charles Gibson and Brian Williams (with Katie Couric admitting some failures).   But Dan Rather, who was CBS anchor in 2003, offered a strong critique of the journalists' performance in his speech to the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis yesterday.

But, sounding more like Bill Moyers (who delivered a powerful address at the same gathering) every day, Rather went much further in ripping "corporate news."

This is a short diary.  I tuned in to see the results of the local races here in San Diego.  In case you didn't know, today was California's SECOND primary election (even though we could have gotten by just fine with one).

So, I went to the Channel 10 (KGTV) News website to check the results. I can report the results to you now, regardless what happens later: Channel 10 is clearly biased against the Democratic Party.

Check it out for yourself here.

For starters, I only use "MSM" in the title because "corporate media" or "infotainment media" wouldn’t fit.  That being said, the sad irony of the press corps which once again shows how out of touch the village idiots are with reality is that, despite all of the huffing and puffing about how Scott McClellan wouldn’t let them do their jobs, they still are falling flat on their faces at every turn.

I’d use the term jumped the shark (hyperlinked for those who don’t know what it means) to describe them and their role in the whole "reporting the news and professional journalism" thing that they clearly have long given up but I think the term "jump the shark" has kind of jumped the shark...

The media won't even touch the substance of Scott McClellan's book.  Instead they will subtley imply that Scott McClellan is a liar.  The media will play a clip of Scott McClellan saying one thing then force him to defend his postion.  There still won't be any true public discourse and discussion  of the substance of his book.  The storyline will be about his credibility, his motive to write the book, his loyality.  The media will slowly try to paint Scott McClellan as liar without giving any credit to the allegations we have known to be true all this time and have argued countlessly in diaries all over the blogosphere...

With the new Scott McClellan book finally out, it is amazing and incredible to watch the corporate media defending itself from allegations that they were "complicit enablers".

I just saw this posted on CurrentTV and it absolutely needs to be seen by everyone. This fits right in with the narrative that has arisen regarding the failure and interference of the corporate media. If there is one movie that will drive any sane person screaming from their couch watching cable news to the warm hills of the blogosphere and more people powered media.

Artist Brian Springer spent a year scouring the airwaves with a satellite dish grabbing back channel news feeds not intended for public consumption. The result of his research is SPIN, one of the most insightful films ever made about the mechanics of how television is used as a tool of social control to distort and limit the American public's perception of reality.

I implore you to watch the first 10 minutes and recommend as soon as your gag reflex fully kicks in.

[kudos to Trix for the embed code]

Don't know if you caught this, but Politico's Michael Calderone runs the video of Jessica Yellin breaking astounding news to CNN's Anderson Cooper: Apparently corporate media executives pressured the White House reporters to kill negative stories on Bush, especially when Bush's approval ratings were high.  (I know!  Unbelievable!)

(Let me know if this has already been diaried.)

What was most amusing to me, though (aside from Cooper's naivete), were the right-wing commenters on the Politico, who figured the only censorship imaginable was probably to take out Yellin's inate liberal bias and "Bush hatred":

"Where in the MSM have we EVER seen positive stories about this administration or the war?? Its just not there."

"Maybe her stories were already biased by her hatred of Bush and her editors were trying to balance the story...which she found objectionable."

Yeah, that must be it.  Link and pull-outs from Yellin are below the fold.

Glen Beck , at CNN, has written one of the strangest pieces I have ever seen on higher ed. It is largely incoherent and contradictory. When he does make a valid point it is  plainly wrong headed. And it is also mostly deliberate misrepresentation (not even Glenn Beck can be stupid enough to believe Harvard's faculty control its endowment).

Guess who Glenn Beck thinks is holding back what he calls Greater Shrewsbury Liberal Arts Community Technical College for Women (GSLACTCW)? Would you believe that the people who control Harvard's endowment are wantonly spending that money on left wing college professors? Would you believe that Harvard's faculty somehow decides what Harvard does with its endowment?

At about 1:15 today, there was a reporter talking about Senator Kennedy's condition.  While she was speaking, a photo shot was running of Senator Kennedy at the compound in Hyannis, sitting on the porch with a family member.  In order to get this shot, a helicopter was dispatched off the shoreline in Hyannis and was hovering over the porch at the private residence of the Senator.

Imagine having a helicopter hovering over your head; the noise; the way the propeller creates a sort of vacuum in your ears and stirs up sand and dirt.

Now imagine you've been through some hospital procedures, may have a headache from treatments; may be struggling with news no one wants to face and having this done to you.

To me this is cruel, and I don't, as a viewer, appreciate the "efforts" of the media to "bring" me this story.

In fact I am outraged that Senator Kennedy's space is being violated.  Somehow the media feel free to violate the Kennedy's boundaries, and over the years it has been extremely tasteless; this takes the cake.

Join me beneath the fold!

This diary is cross-posted to my blog, where I've included a Time magazine cover from the 1950s of Cohn.

In networking, the problem of getting your data out to your end users is often referred to as the "last mile" problem.  It's difficult enough to build a trunk line through a major populated area, but since the network is of no use to anyone without users, you have to branch out all the wires to that "last mile" to the consumer's house.

I was raving about how much I hated the MSM the other day, and how useless I thought they were becoming, when a Hillaryite hopped on my thread to snootily inform me that most of our source material on the Blogz came from that very same MSM.  So it got me thinking.  We (the Blogosphere) have a huge network for presenting analysis and reverse-filtering to our readers.  But what about that last mile?  What's it take to cut the MSM out of the loop entirely?

This diary will be shorter than is normally required. But here I think is a chance to hit back at CNN. So please consider recommending and taking five minutes to send CNN an e-mail on  This hit piece on Obama and his connection to Reverend Wright.

Updated: Also write to verdict@msnbc.com to complain about Dan Abram's hour long non-story on Wright and Obama.

Newspaper editors heart Obama; TV pundits not so much.

Of course there are a bunch of reasons for this disparity, but an obvious one is Senator Obama's strong technology platform, a prominent component of which is a rock-solid commitment to "net neutrality." Net neutrality threatens corporate broadcasters, but the good news is that this issue brings lots of ordinary people on the left and the right together.  

The family-friendly net neutrality advocated by Senator Obama should be especially effective with the "family values" voters that democrats sometimes have trouble reaching.

So all we have to do is bring this issue to the fore.  (Ideas about how to do that below.)