Between Chris show-more-dead-bodies-and-blood Hedges, and Michael Kinsley who fell all over himself with pride that he was actually sitting there next to, wow, Tom Hayden, I’ve had my fill and will no longer cut the MSM any slack.

A commenter at Tim Blair’s said he lived his first 28 years without ever hearing the conservative side because the MSM disseminated only its pov. I’ll take that further. I lived 59 years before I even knew another pov existed!

Hopefully their stranglehold has loosened. I say what Ledeen implores in another context: Faster, please.

Newsman: I’m a Republican, you know, but Bush and the Republicans are trampling our civil rights and ruining this country.

Me: Is that so? In what ways?

Newsman: The Patriot Act violates citizen privacy and hasn’t even been used to arrest a single person. Also, airlines are sharing passenger info with the government which they should never do. We could solve the air terrorism problem simply by banning all carry-on luggage and hardening cockpits, but the profit-driven airlines won’t do this. Flying in Europe is perfectly safe because governments there partially own the airlines and give them a lot of money for things like security measures.

Me: Completely safe on European airliners? What about other sectors of our economy and infrastructure vulnerable to terrorism- should they be nationalized or underwritten by the feds?

Newsman: Sure. Free enterprise doesn’t work so well. Take health care, for instance. Canada, France, and the rest of Europe do so much better than we do with their government programs that take care of everybody.

Me: Even though elective surgeries can be wait-listed for long periods, overall care is low mediocre, and the systems are becoming too costly to maintain? Why do you think Canada and Europe won’t afford decent militaries and instead rely upon the do-nothing soft power of the UN and on our hard power? Would you want to be elderly in France this summer?

Newsman: In Canada there were only four homicides by gun last year.

Me: Have you been following the mounting scandals in the Canadian government?

Newsman: What scandals? (Gives quizzical look.) At least Canada didn’t participate in an illegal war that the UN didn’t sanction.

Me: But the UN is rife with corruption and conflicts of interest over the Iraq question. Just consider UNSCAM, its track record wrt to coddling tyrants, and Chirac’s billions in oil concessions were Saddam to have stayed in power.

Newsman: UNSCAM? (Blank look.) What about how we’ve cut the French out of post-war reconstruction in Iraq? That’s not fair.

Me: (Now I give quizzical look.) Not only did the French not pay in blood and treasury to liberate the Iraqis, they obstructed our efforts. Do you really think Iraqis and most Americans want the French there?

Newsman: But Bush lied about WMD.

Me: Did he? So it was all about Halliburton and oil, then?

Newsman: Yes, read the WaPo series on Halliburton from last year. The war was only to enrich Cheney’s company. The US should have directly contracted services and materiel to hundreds of smaller firms, instead.

Me: But we were mobilizing for war and did not have the time and resources to directly bid out each and every need.

Newsman: We should have done it, anyway. Capitalism is out of hand, and it’s spoiling our kids who expect a grand lifestyle.

Me: Aren’t we indulgent parents more to blame on that last score?

Newsman: Greed and selfishness are the fault of society and our corporate culture. People aren’t even reading newspapers. Circulation rates are in serious decline.

Me: Might circulation decline have something to do with the partisan and shallow coverage traditional media tends to offer and also its own credibility issues?

Newsman: I’m not sure what you mean–

Me: Well, Dan Rather, Eason Jordan and Jayson Blair for starters. And then there’s the war and election reporting.

Newsman: Yes, well, Dan was a bit slow to admit some mistakes and TV anchors are all ridiculous. How about that Bill O’Reilly and Fox News which is anything BUT ‘fair and balanced’?

Me: Agreed about Bill, but do you really think Fox is biased and the other networks aren’t?

Newsman: Isn’t that obvious? Newspaper reporting is the best source of news, however. Do you know about the blogosphere? It’s a complete joke, a bunch of people spouting off about things they know nothing about. Unfortunately, blogs are where more and more people think they are getting the news without ever referencing published newspaper articles and editorials. It’s scary. People aren’t reading enough real journalism and proper news from the professionals; too few people read the NYT, these days. That’s why they vote in people like Bush and Cheney who are destroying this nation.

Me: (to myself) If he’s a “Republican”, I’m a grey spider about the size of a gumdrop. Then again, our paper’s editorial board is so far left he might actually think he’s a Repub…

For years the elite media has been claiming that the charges of political bias and innaccurate agenda reporting were false. The argued that, while admitting occasional mistakes, they were practicing the highest form of journalism and that any charges that they were not were the ramblings of neandrathals and right wing idealogues.

Does the current mea culpa mean that they were lying all this time or does it mean that in the face of declining revenue they have decided to abandon those high journalistic standards to prostitute themselves for cash?

Makes me yawn just thinking about it.

For one thing I don’t have the time for another I lack the desire.

I doubt I am all that exceptional.

Why?î

What does it matter to them? The top honchos at these large media outlets are relatively close to retirement age. They have a few bucks in the bank. Most of them are eligible to collect their pensions within the next few years. In the meantime, they keep their most valued customers happy and continue getting invited to the important parties.

An LA Times commercial on local TV here seems to validate your thesis.

It consists of middle-aged people in black turtlenecks and euro-chic glasses sipping coffee out of expensive-looking earthenware cups while reading the LAT. The only exception was a really good-looking and well built middle aged black guy who was reclining by the pool without a shirt.

When I saw the commercial, I thought it was crazy. Doesn’t eveeryone who fits this profile ALREADY subscribe to the LAT? I don’t know a single wealthy greying leftist who isn’t a subscriber. Not a single one. And the “idealized” LAT subscriber the commercial portrayed isn’t one that will resonate outside of Brentwood. People in middle- and working-class suburbs like West Covina and Ontario who don’t currenlty subscribe to the LAT don’t aspire to be latte-sipping metrosexuals. Many hunger for sophistication and but the wimpy elitists in the ads seem strange and repulsive, not regular folks living an ideal life that you, too, can have if you subscribe to the LAT.

The MSM is so puzzling. Sure, newspapers are going to see a decline in their circulation now that the Internet is here. Sure, ABC, CBS, and NBC are going to lose some viewers to Fox.

But the MSM still has a stable of very intelligent and interesting writers. They still have the resources to cover actual news in a way that bloggers cannot easily duplicate.

And for a while, they even had a reputation for excellence. I used to love reading the online version of the WaPo. For years it was my favorite paper. You can’t really get it if you don’t live in DC, the delivery service that carries it elsewhere gets it to you a day late and is so expensive that it really isn’t worthwhile. But when the Internet came — it was great! I could read the WaPo every day! The Internet actually INCREASED the WaPo’s readership by one in my case.

But like many here, I don’t read it any more. The columnists are still talented. The paper still has the resources to gather facts — bloggers can’t have lunch with some assistant undersecretary of whatever like WaPo reporters can.

But it’s like they are trying to drive readers away. As the years have gone by the WaPo has gotten more and more ideologically extreme. There is nothing but 24/7 Bush bashing today. This is infurating becuase the WaPo could give its readers the truth if it wanted to. It is just miles from the Pentagon! It could report that the war is an incredible success if it wanted to, and could give readers an accurate historical and strategic perspective — but it doesn’t. The WaPo knows that the Bush White House is not filled with bible-thumping extremists — but it won’t admit this. Etc., etc.

The WaPo is the most moderate of all the MSM papers. Yet it is digging its own grave. They all are. There is a moderate readership out there which will read them. But they are spurning these readers in pursuit of a dying market of greying hippies.

Why?

I’m pretty sure this predates Keller. I’ve felt for some time that the NYT would like to fill the same niche here that the Guardian fills in England. Currently they have the requisite number of nutcase opinion writers but lack the balance, such as it is, of the Guardian. I think their news coverage is worse. But I suppose they will continue to appeal to the “smart” people who can see no reason to question the contents and who feel they are subscribing to *the* high-brow newspaper.

I still think the Times has one of the best science sections, I generally skip the columnists, and the news has to be read with suspicion.

Wow, where have I been? I missed that candid admission by Bill Keller. The New York Timeís core base is leftist—and often very well to do. These are people who purchase small Manhattan apartments for two million dollars and think nothing of it. They want to live in their own dream world where all difficulties can be blamed on the Bush administration. We may be witnessing a subtle demographic shift where individuals place a greater importance on the political inclinations of their neighbors. If my theory is correct, then New York City is going to get a lot bluer.

I’d love to see their market research. OTOH, it’s not too hard to guess, judging from those “most emailed articles.” These are graying urban liberals who think Maureen Dowd the soul of wit, view Paul Krugman as an objective and brave Teller of Truth to Power, and whose core concerns (outside of politics) are either health- or market-related. They have a ravenous appetite for the prices of stocks and of real estate, prices of elite college educations and Broadway show tickets and designer trunk sales.

Paper of record? Nope. Not even that pretense remains. Boy Pinch’s NYTimes is a cross between New York magazine, Money, and The Nation.