Nagourney’s a hack. Mickey Kaus at kausfiles.com has his number.

As to the rest of the MSM, they still haven’t figured out that increasing numbers of Americans with a college degree and an orientation anywhere to the right of Al Gore consider them a joke.

Journalists are not professionals like surgeons or accountants or achitects. Anyone can become a journalist. This guild has no certification criteria, no agreed ethical standards, no peer review, no sanctions for persistent failure to maintain standards.

This is especially true in three major areas of coverage:

– stories that demand deep subject matter expertise, be it financial, legal, scientific, medical, etc.;

– foreign coverage generally, especially where the crucial actor is a more or less closed regime and the language in question is difficult to learn (cf Russia, most of the Arab world, most of Asia etc)

– stories like A Very Kerry Christmas (in Cambodia) that do not fit the MSM’s meta-narrative (Kerry=hero, Bush=poltroon).